BT  1101  .  L38  1923 
Lawrence ,  John  Jones, 
i-lie  Christian  credentials 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 

\ 


https://archive.org/details/christiancredentOOIawr 


The  Christian  Credentials 

An  Appeal  of  Faith  to  Doubt 


The  Christian  Credentials 


An  Appeal  of  Faith  to  Doubt 


V' 


OCT  30  1923 


/ 

JOHN  J.  LAWRENCE,  D.D. 


'tfigjCil 


iV\ 


Pastor  of  First  Presbyterian  Churchy 
Binghamton ,  N.  Y. 


WITH  INTRODUCTION  BY 

S.  PARKES  CADMAN,  D.D. 


New  York 


Chicago 


Fleming  H.  Revell 

London  and  E 


Company 

DINBURGH 


AND 


Copyright,  1923,  by 

FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  17  North  Wabash  Ave. 
London :  2 1  Paternoster  Square 

Edinburgh :  75  Princes  Street 


Introduction 


I  AM  thankful  that  Dr.  Lawrence  has  con¬ 
sented  to  the  publication  of  this  timely 
and  helpful  book.  As  an  Apologetic  for 
the  Gospel  of  the  New  Testament  it  comes 
into  a  somewhat  crowded  field.  Nevertheless, 
it  has  merits  of  its  own,  which  make  it  a  valu¬ 
able  work  to  circulate  among  ministers  and  lay¬ 
men  alike,  to  say  nothing  of  the  millions  of 
nominal  believers  or  of  avowed  aliens  to 
Christianity,  who  do  not  clearly  understand 
the  essentials  of  our  religion. 

The  author  approaches  his  theme  in  a  man¬ 
ner  that  Bishop  Butler  would  have  commended, 
but  with  a  certitude  which  the  great  philoso¬ 
pher’s  probabilism  did  not  have.  He  first 
shows  us  those  inherent  necessities  of  human 
life  and  thought  which  demand  reasonable 
satisfaction,  and  then  he  proceeds  to  find  their 
satisfaction  in  the  Person,  the  Teaching  and 
the  Mission  of  our  Blessed  Lord. 

The  truth  that  personality,  human  and 
divine,  is  the  sole  gateway  of  religious  com- 

5 


6 


INTRODUCTION 


munications  is  made  the  basis  of  a  weighty  dis¬ 
cussion  favouring  the  Christo-centric  position 
in  theological  determinations.  Dr.  Lawrence 
also  happily  combines  the  historical  and  ex¬ 
perimental  elements  of  these  vital  issues. 
What  has  actually  happened  and  what  has 
been  firmly  believed  in  Christian  annals  are 
skillfully  blended  and  made  complementary  to 
each  other.  Throughout  the  book  there  is  a 
frank  acknowledgment  of  the  burdens  resting 
upon  faith.  The  author  is  not  diverted  from 
his  real  task  by  dogmatic  assertions  that  the 
march  to  Paradise  is  nearly  ended.  He  does 
not  inflict  upon  his  readers  the  insolence  of  ill- 
founded  hopes,  nor  kindle  false  expectations, 
the  extinction  of  which  frequently  eventuates 
in  disaster  or  even  in  despair.  But  while  ad¬ 
mitting  the  difficulties  of  belief  he  stresses  the 
infinitely  greater  difficulties  of  unbelief.  The 
result  is  beneficial.  It  bids  us  hearken  to  the 
voice  of  Faith  and  ignore  the  voice  of  Fear. 

Dr.  Lawrence’s  plea  for  a  renewed  church 
consciousness  in  Protestantism  stands  out  like 
a  lamp  in  a  dark  place.  It  should  be  heard 
and  heeded  by  the  clergy  of  the  Reformed 
Churches.  For  the  organic  weakness  of  Prot¬ 
estantism  is  largely  traceable  to  its  inability 


INTEODUCTION 


7 


to  conceive  of  Christianity  in  universal  terms. 
This  book  demonstrates  that  such  an  inability 
is  not  congenital  and  that  it  can  and  should  be 
eliminated  by  a  progressive  reintegration  of  the 
religious  forces  of  the  Protestant  order. 

The  author’s  quotations  and  references  in¬ 
dicate  the  width  and  discrimination  of  his  read¬ 
ing.  One  finds  in  them  a  grateful  stirring  of 
recollections  belonging  to  true  theological 
culture,  and  to  men  whose  names  are  synonyms 
for  profound  devotion  and  sound  learning. 
The  prevalence  throughout  the  volume  of  the 
author’s  strong  and  vigorous  individuality  will 
not  surprise  those  who  have  been  fortunate 
enough  to  know  him  and  the  evangelical  range, 
force  and  persuasiveness  of  his  ministry.  I 
am  fully  aware  of  the  insufficiency  of  these 
prefatory  remarks,  but  if  they  induce  the 
reader  to  make  close  contact  with  this  book, 
my  end  will  have  been  gained. 

S.  Parkes  Cadman. 

Central  Church,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 


Contents 

I. 

The  Present  Situation 

ii 

II. 

Inherent  Probability  . 

28 

III. 

The  Character  of  the  Founder  . 

54 

IV. 

The  Divine  Element  in  Christian 
Origins . 

97 

V. 

The  Truth  of  Personal  Experi¬ 
ence  . 

*47 

VI. 

The  Witness  of  History  . 

173 

VII. 

The  World  at  the  Crossroads  . 

211 

9 


I 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION 

CHRISTIANITY  presents  a  series  of 
great  and  commanding  affirmations. 
It  is  far  more  than  an  array  of  guesses 
and  peradventures.  It  deals  with  the  founda¬ 
tions  of  experience  and  with  the  ultimates  of 
thought.  It  asserts  the  personality  of  God, 
and  reveals  Him  as  the  First  Cause  of  all  that 
is.  It  makes  a  disclosure  of  Deity  in  the  per¬ 
son  of  the  One  who  founded  the  Faith,  and 
whose  abiding  energy  is  the  secret  of  its  prog¬ 
ress  through  the  Christian  ages.  It  presents 
God  as  the  Father  of  the  human  race,  and  in 
so  doing  lifts  the  doctrine  of  human  brother¬ 
hood  to  a  spiritual  level  from  which  it  can 
never  be  dislodged  as  long  as  the  truth  of 
Divine  Fatherhood  is  held.  It  deals  with  man 
as  an  immortal  being  for  whom  death  can  have 
only  an  incidental  significance.  It  states  the 
doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth  in 
terms  which  preclude  all  uncertainty.  It  por¬ 
trays  the  moral  evil  of  the  world  in  lurid 

ii 


12  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


colours,  yet  with  the  fullest  confidence  that 
such  evils  may  be  overcome,  and  mankind  up- 
lifted  to  heights  of  holiness  where  life  is 
crowned  with  beauty  and  joy. 

The  sons  of  wretchedness  and  night, 

May  dwell  in  the  Eternal  Light. 

Through  the  Eternal  Love. 

These  and  kindred  affirmations  carry  with 
them  a  body  of  claims  which  are  unique.  The 
Christian  Faith  is  not  presented  to  us  merely  as 
an  explanation  of  a  number  of  puzzles,  or  as 
an  answer  to  the  many  questions  which  man 
feels  he  may  legitimately  ask.  It  is  not  a 
philosophy  to  be  discussed,  but  rather  a  demand 
for  conformity  to  a  series  of  ideals.  “  Be  ye 
transformed”  (Paul).  Its  appeals  are  ethical, 
and  go  to  the  roots  of  our  being.  It  summons 
men  to  repentance  of  all  known  sin,  and  to  the 
immediate  acceptance  of  all  clearly-revealed 
duty.  It  says  something  about  the  quest  for 
happiness,  but  much  more  concerning  the  pur¬ 
suit  of  holiness.  It  calls  upon  men  to  walk 
upon  the  high  and  difficult  pathways  of  sacri¬ 
fice.  It  presents  the  will  of  a  holy  God  as  the 
supreme  motive  of  life.  At  its  behest  all  self- 
seeking  tempers  and  aims  are  to  be  brought  into 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION 


13 


submission  to  spiritual  authority.  The  issues 
which  it  raises  are  vital.  As  Dr.  Newman 
Smyth  truly  says,  “  Jesus  speaks  in  imper¬ 
atives.  He  does  not  argue  with  men ;  He  com¬ 
mands  them.  Tike  the  successive  strokes  of  a 
bell  ringing  out  over  the  hills  and  down  the 
valleys,  these  imperatives  of  Jesus  sound  forth 
across  the  ages:  Repent;  Believe;  Come;  Fol¬ 
low  me;  Take  up  your  cross;  Seek  first  the 
Kingdom  of  God;  Keep  my  commandments.” 1 
These  demands  of  faith  may  be  accepted  or 
rejected,  but  they  permit  of  no  paltering.  All 
attempts  to  make  the  Christian  Faith  more 
agreeable  to  the  delicate  tastes  of  this  age  by 
the  elimination  of  dogma  are  futile.  Indeed 
there  are  some  clear  Christian  thinkers  who 
suggest  that  a  genuine  revival  of  dogma  must 
precede  the  next  great  revival  of  religion.  In 
any  case  we  gain  nothing  by  whittling  down 
the  demands  of  faith  to  so  many  vanishing 
points. 

In  the  Nature  of  Things  these  demands  call 
for  an  answer.  The  replies  to  Faith  should  be 
as  definite  as  its  challenges.  To  patronize  the 
Christian  Religion  by  pious  appreciations  of  its 
integrities  and  beauties;  to  concede  to  it  the 
1  “  The  Reality  of  Faith,”  p. 


ioo. 


14  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


position  of  primacy  among  the  religions  of  the 
world;  to  bestow  upon  it  a  gracious  personal 
approval;  to  do  this  and  nothing  more,  marks 
an  obvious  failure  to  realize  its  authority. 
This  kind  of  behaviour,  by  no  means  uncom¬ 
mon,  met  its  fitting  appraisal  in  the  judgment 
of  Jesus:  “And  why  call  ye  me  Lord,  Lord, 
and  do  not  the  things  which  I  say  ?  ” 2  Until  a 
man  has  answered  the  Christian  demands  in 
terms  of  personal  obedience,  he  has  either  not 
answered  at  all,  or  his  answer  is  an  evasion. 

What  is  the  modern  answer  to  the  Christian 
challenge  ? 

Thirty  years  ago,  that  keen  observer  of 
American  life,  Dr.  Josiah  Strong,  wrote  these 
words:  “If  the  many  towns  and  cities  which 
have  been  investigated  in  various  states  are 
fairly  representative  of  the  whole  country,  we 
may  infer  that  less  than  thirty  per  cent,  are 
regular  attendants  upon  church,  that  perhaps 
twenty  per  cent,  are  irregular  attendants,  while 
fully  one-half  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  never  attend  any  church  service.,,  3  Since 
those  words  were  written  America  has  in¬ 
creased  its  population  by  more  than  fifty  per 

3  Luke  6 :  46. 

‘“The  New  Era,”  Josiah  Strong,  D.  D.,  p.  205. 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION 


15 


cent.,  but  it  is  doubtful  if  the  ratio  of  church 
membership  to  the  rest  of  the  community  has 
been  greatly  changed.  For  the  purpose  of  this 
argument  an  exact  statistical  statement  is  not 
essential;  an  approximate  judgment  is  ade¬ 
quate.  The  situation  may  be  thus  stated — 
nearly  one-half  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  are  never  seen  in  any  place  of  Christian 
worship.  They  make  no  affirmative  response 
to  the  Christian  demand.  Only  in  relatively 
small  numbers  are  they  avowed  atheists,  and 
in  many  cases  they  take  an  honourable  place 
among  our  law-abiding  citizens.  In  some  in¬ 
stances  they  manifest  virtues  and  graces  of  the 
Christian  type.  They  have  not  entirely  for¬ 
feited  their  Christian  heritages  and  habits. 
Contact  with  religious  traditions  and  associa¬ 
tions  has  left  its  imprint  upon  them.  But  they 
have  made  no  personal  avowals  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Faith.  They  stand  apart  from  the  dis¬ 
tinctive  Christian  campaign.  They  may  not  be 
intentional  enemies  of  the  Cross,  but  they  are 
not  its  adherents. 

In  thus  stating  the  case  I  am  not  trying  to 
invest  church  membership  with  the  guarantees 
of  Christian  salvation,  nor  to  endow  it  with  an 
unwarranted  measure  of  spiritual  sanctity.  It 


16  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


is  certain,  however,  that  the  Christian  Church 
does  furnish  an  approximate  registration  of 
Christian  belief  and  life.  Every  great  revival 
of  the  Christian  religion  has  been  followed  by 
a  renewed  devotion  to  church  life  and  fellow¬ 
ship.  Its  services,  its  sacraments  and  its  activ¬ 
ities  have  received  a  new  significance.  The 
dogma  “  no  salvation  outside  the  Church  ”  is 
not  invoked  in  this  discussion.  I  simply  assert 
the  position  maintained  by  theologians  and 
Christian  leaders,  and  shared  by  the  general 
consensus  of  religious  opinion,  that  the  accept¬ 
ance  of  the  Christian  Faith  finds  its  normal  and 
consistent  expression  in  personal  attachment  to 
the  Church.  If  no  one  accepted  the  Faith,  the 
Church  would  soon  cease  to  exist;  if  all  ac¬ 
cepted  it,  the  membership  of  the  Church  would 
speedily  register  the  fact. 

In  this  general  sense,  therefore,  the  ratio  of 
church  membership  to  the  population  tells  its 
own  story  concerning  the  attitude  of  half  of 
the  people  toward  the  Christian  Faith.  That 
attitude  is  one  of  non-acceptance.  Is  non- 
acceptance  the  equivalent  of  rejection?  I  think 
not,  although  it  is  not  always  easy  to  differ¬ 
entiate.  In  some  instances  non-acceptance  may 
be  regarded  as  a  temporary  phase  rather  than 


THE  PKESENT  SITUATION 


17 


a  final  attitude  of  mind  and  will.  A  man  may 
be  urged  to  invest  a  sum  of  money  in  some 
promising,  though  speculative  enterprise.  He 
fails  to  take  positive  action,  although  giving 
serious  thought  to  the  proposal.  He  is  not 
convinced  of  the  safety  of  the  enterprise, 
neither  is  he  indifferent  to  its  possibilities.  He 
is  non-committal.  Obviously,  however,  this  is 
a  mental  attitude  which  cannot  be  maintained 
indefinitely.  Sooner  or  later  he  must  reach  a 
decision.  He  will  be  swayed  by  the  risks  of 
the  venture  more  than  by  its  prospects  and  will 
reject  the  offer,  or  he  will  be  influenced  more 
by  its  prospects  than  by  its  risks  and  will  ac¬ 
cept  it.  In  both  the  financial  and  religious 
spheres  non-acceptance  is  simply  a  suspense  of 
judgment,  but  it  is  obvious  that  in  neither 
sphere  can  the  judgment  be  held  in  permanent 
suspense.  In  all  practical  matters,  including 
religion,  a  man  inevitably  moves  on  toward 
acceptance  or  rejection. 

Making  all  due  allowance  for  those  who  have 
not  reached  a  definite  conclusion,  it  is  evident 
that  great  masses  of  our  American  people  have 
answered  the  Christian  appeal  in  terms  of  re¬ 
jection.  Their  attitude  is  one  of  unbelief. 
The  conditions  throughout  the  English-speak- 


18  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


mg  world,  the  field  in  which  we  are  most 
directly  interested,  do  not  greatly  differ  from 
those  in  our  own  land. 

There  are  able  religious  thinkers  and 
observers  who,  noting  the  large  measure  of 
popular  disregard  to  religious  appeals,  seek  to 
cover  the  situation  by  the  use  of  another  word, 
viz.,  indifference .  I  am  convinced  that  this 
term  is  inadequate,  and  that  its  usage  has  been 
strained.  Why  are  men  indifferent t  What 
is  the  explanation  of  indifference?  If  this  in¬ 
quiry  be  carefully  followed,  I  believe  it  will  be 
found  that  indifference  is  itself  an  expression 
of  unbelief.  Under  normal  thought-processes 
a  man  is  indifferent  to  matters  which  have  no 
particular  value  or  interest  for  him.  The 
Christian  religion  cannot  be  so  interpreted. 
Its  affirmations  deal  with  the  motives,  purposes, 
standing  and  destinies  of  men.  It  is  a  life  and 
death  matter,  or  it  is  nothing.  Its  imperious 
demands  and  its  exalted  ideals  can  only  be  con¬ 
sistently  set  aside  by  disproof  of  its  basal 
premises,  or  failure  to  feel  their  reality.  If 
Jesus  was  what  He  claimed  to  be  His  demands 
cannot  be  other  than  what  they  are.  A  ra¬ 
tional  thought-process  cannot  admit  the  historic 
bases  of  the  Christian  Faith  and  yet  reject  its 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION 


19 


demands  upon  conduct  and  life.  If  those  de¬ 
mands  are  rejected,  it  is  evident  that  the  basal 
affirmations  are  not  seriously  believed.  An  in¬ 
valid  is  not  indifferent  to  a  medicine  which  he 
believes  will  cure  him,  especially  if  it  is  the  only 
remedy  within  sight.  The  prisoner  in  the  cell 
is  not  indifferent  to  an  act  of  executive  clem¬ 
ency.  A  thirsty  man  is  not  careless  of  the  con¬ 
tents  of  the  glass  if  he  has  every  reason  to 
believe  they  have  been  drugged.  The  healthy- 
minded  man  is  never  indifferent  to  anything 
which  is  admittedly  of  vital  moment  to  his  best 
interests.  Whole-hearted  belief  is  fatal  to  in¬ 
difference.  The  wide-spread  disregard  of  the 
doctrines  and  duties  of  the  Christian  religion 
is  incompatible  with  belief  in  the  Divine  factors 
of  Faith,  but  is  easily  explained  where  those 
factors  are  not  sincerely  believed. 

American  psychology  in  the  World  War 
furnishes  a  fair  illustration  of  this  contention. 
Many  intelligent  Americans  were  largely  indif¬ 
ferent  to  the  war  in  its  earlier  stages.  They 
did  not  trouble  to  do  more  than  read  the  news¬ 
paper  headlines,  and  in  some  instances  they  did 
not  show  even  that  modicum  of  interest.  They 
discouraged  “  war-talk,”  and  were  almost  dis¬ 
posed  to  pronounce  any  earnest  reference  to  the 


20  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 

great  tragedy  as  a  violation  of  good  taste. 
They  were  indifferent,  and  frankly  admitted  it. 
Why?  Because  there  were  certain  basal  facts 
concerning  the  war  which  they  did  not  believe. 
They  were  unconcerned  because  they  were  un¬ 
believing.  The  reality  and  almost  incredible 
magnitude  of  the  Pan-Germanic  dream;  the 
passion  with  which  the  military  party  in  Ger¬ 
many  dedicated  itself  to  the  thought  of 
supreme  world-power ;  the  larger  meanings  and 
horrors  of  frightfulness;  the  inclusion  of 
America  within  the  scope  of  German  intrigue ; 
all  these  and  similar  facts,  which  determined 
the  origin  and  progress  of  the  war,  were  not 
seriously  believed  by  many  in  our  midst.  Once 
they  were  accepted,  and  in  some  measure  vis¬ 
ualized,  the  reactions  of  these  people  were  sud¬ 
denly  and  radically  changed. 

Popular  indifference  to  religion  admits  of  a 
similar  explanation.  The  basic  facts  of  the 
Christian  Faith  are  not  clearly  seen.  The 
arguments  of  Faith  are  not  grasped.  Masses 
of  people  are  not  avowed  atheists,  yet  even 
with  them  unbelief  may  be  the  dominating 
factor  of  life,  so  far  as  its  religious  interests  are 
concerned.  A  man  may  not  be  an  atheist,  but 
he  is  an  unbeliever  when  he  fails  to  recognize 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION 


21 


the  Christian  view  of  truth.  Undoubtedly  this 
was  one  of  the  reasons  why  Jesus  laid  such  re¬ 
peated  emphasis  on  belief.  The  word  was  con¬ 
stantly  upon  His  lips.  He  seemed  always  to 
assume  that  a  man’s  belief  was  the  regulating 
factor  of  his  conduct.  Dr.  John  Watson 
writes,  “  He  marvelled  twice ;  once  at  men’s  un¬ 
belief,  once  at  a  Roman  centurion’s  faith.”  4 
The  reason  assigned  for  the  production  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  by  its  writer  is  suggestive; 
“  These  (things)  are  written  that  ye  might  be¬ 
lieve  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God, 
and  that  believing  ye  might  have  life  through 
his  name.” 5  The  other  evangelists  might 
have  used  the  same  words.  The  whole  pur¬ 
pose  of  the  Christian  Gospel  is  the  presentation 
of  a  series  of  facts  for  human  belief.  Until 
such  belief  is  established,  there  can  be  no  ade¬ 
quate  spiritual  reaction  in  favour  of  Faith. 
Belief  in  the  historic  verities  of  the  Christian 
religion  opens  the  way  for  the  acceptance  of 
its  duties  and  demands.  Nothing  else  can. 
The  psychology  of  the  New  Testament  is  be¬ 
yond  question.  Belief  precedes  action.  Chris¬ 
tian  experience  follows  in  the  track  of  Chris- 

4  “  The  Mind  of  the  Master,”  p.  135. 

6  John  20:  31. 


22  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


tian  conviction.  To  say  that  Christian  Theol¬ 
ogy  has  grown  out  of  experience  is,  at  best, 
only  a  partial  truth.  I  believe  we  are  much 
nearer  the  truth  when  we  say  that  Christian 
experience  has  grown  out  of  the  acceptance  of 
the  Christian  revelation.  It  may  be  objected, 
e.  g.,  that  the  prayer  of  a  child  antedates  any 
clear  belief  in  the  doctrine  of  prayer.  But 
does  not  a  child  pray  because  it  has  been 
taught  and  trained  by  some  other  person  who 
does  believe  in  the  doctrine  of  prayer?  Indif¬ 
ference  is  a  clear  indication  of  the  absence  of 
vital  belief.  Where  the  fundamental  truths  of 
religion  are  not  sensed  they  cannot  be  operative. 
It  is  just  this  failure  to  sense  Christian  truth 
that  creates  the  general  condition  which  we 
describe  as  indifference.  A  man  only  really 
believes  that  which  impinges  in  some  way  upon 
his  consciousness ;  everything  else  is  largely  un¬ 
real  to  him. 

This  failure  to  grasp  the  arguments  and 
challenges  of  Faith  has  been  encouraged  during 
recent  years  by  several  movements  closely  as¬ 
sociated  with  religion  itself. 

The  general  public  has  received  the  impres¬ 
sion  that  there  is  a  wide  and  almost  fathom¬ 
less  chasm  between  Science  and  Faith.  It  has 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION 


23 


heard  much  of  the  quarrel  between  these  two 
camps,  and  much  that  it  has  heard  has  been 
exaggeration.  Its  misgivings  have  been  still 
further  increased  by  the  excitement  caused  by 
the  pronouncements  of  Biblical  criticism.  In 
many  cases  people  have  only  the  vaguest  idea 
as  to  the  meaning  of  the  term.  They  have  un¬ 
fortunately  gathered  the  impression  that  the 
studies  of  Biblical  scholars  have  in  some  way 
invalidated  the  spiritual  authority  of  the  Bible. 
For  the  growth  of  this  unfortunate  impression 
the  extremists  of  the  conservative  school  of 
Biblical  teachers  must  bear  some  measure  of 
responsibility.  More  than  once  I  have  heard 
a  stalwart  conservative  say  in  effect,  “  Either 
the  Bible  is  an  infallible  book — or  it  is  not. 
If  it  is  not  infallible,  it  is  worthless.  If  there 
are  any  verbal  errors  in  the  book,  it  is  not  in¬ 
fallible,  and  therefore  worthless,”  Along 
comes  a  Dr.  Robertson  Smith,  or  a  Canon 
Driver,  or  a  Professor  Peake  who  says,  “There 
are  lots  of  verbal  errors.”  The  ill-informed 
man,  who  knows  very  little  of  the  Bible,  but 
who  has  overheard  this  discussion,  is  immedi¬ 
ately  encouraged  in  his  non-committal  attitude. 
Almost  unconsciously  he  drifts  toward  a  posi¬ 
tion  of  uncertainty.  In  effect  he  says,  “  After 


24  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


all,  who  knows?  There  is  disagreement  be¬ 
tween  Science  and  Faith;  there  is  conflict  be¬ 
tween  liberal  and  conservative  expositors  of 
the  Bible.  At  any  rate,  is  there  not  an  element 
of  uncertainty  hanging  like  a  veil  over  the 
whole  subject?  ”  Conservative  extremists 
have  staked  all  upon  an  unsafe  premise.  They 
have  piously  gambled, — and  lost.  No  one 
doubts  their  sincerity,  but  there  are  times  when 
sincerity  may  be  a  fanaticism.  A  skillful  and 
unscrupulous  scepticism  has  been  quick  to  take 
advantage  of  this  situation. 

The  case  is  well  stated  by  Professor  Peake. 
“  There  is  an  energetic  and  skillfully  conducted 
propaganda  of  unbelief,”  he  says,  “  promoted 
by  men  who  acknowledge  no  God,  no  free-will, 
no  sin,  no  redemption,  who  cast  doubt  on  the 
very  existence  of  Jesus,  and  are  determined  to 
leave  no  stone  unturned  that  they  may  extir¬ 
pate  a  belief  in  the  religion  of  which  He  is  the 
foundation.  ...  In  the  general  unsettle¬ 
ment  which  is  so  characteristic  of  our  time  it 
is  not  wonderful  if  many  feel  that  the  whole 
religious  territory  has  been  converted  into  a 
quivering  morass.” 6  “  The  general  unsettle¬ 

ment  !  ”  There  the  great  English  scholar  lays 
6  “  The  Bible,”  A.  $.  Peake,  D.  D.,  p.  3. 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION 


25 


his  hand  upon  the  most  characteristic  feature 
of  our  age.  “  Unsettlement”  It  is  signifi¬ 
cant  that  just  at  the  time  when  Dr.  Peake  was 
writing  these  words,  one  of  our  leading  Ameri¬ 
can  preachers,  Dr.  Jefferson,  wrote  these  lines 
at  the  beginning  of  his  book,  “  Things  Funda¬ 
mental”:  “Mental  confusion  is  everywhere. 
It  is  impossible  that  the  Christian  Church 
should  escape  it.  The  impression  has  gone 
abroad  that  Christianity  is  not  what  it  used  to 
be ;  that  the  Bible  is  not  the  book  it  was  when 
we  were  young;  that  the  old  doctrines  have 
been,  if  not  discredited,  at  least  seriously  modi¬ 
fied;  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  must  be  looked  at 
from  a  different  viewpoint;  and  that  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Church  is  not  worthy  of  the  veneration 
which  was  gWen  to  it  by  the  fathers,”  7  Un¬ 
settlement!  Mental  confusion!  A  thousand 
authorities  could  be  found  to  endorse  the  views 
of  these  two  able  men.  This  is  the  atmosphere 
in  which  indifference  is  most  likely  to  thrive, 
especially  when  the  age  is  marked  by  such 
material  activities  as  the  world  has  never 
known.  There  are  over  ten  millions  of  auto¬ 
mobiles  rushing  to  and  fro  through  our  land. 
Airplanes  move  across  the  sky.  The  radio- 
1  “  Things  Fundamental,”  Chas.  E.  Jefferson,  D.  D.,  p.  2. 


26  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


graph  fascinates  by  its  wizardry.  These 
things  make  an  almost  unlimited  demand  upon 
the  thought,  the  imagination  and  the  interest  of 
the  people.  A  man  has  only  so  much  mental 
energy,  as  he  has  only  so  much  time,  and  when 
these  material  wonders  absorb  his  personal  in¬ 
terest,  it  is  obvious  that  spiritual  questions  re¬ 
ceive  little  attention.  They  do  not  “  impinge  ” 
upon  his  consciousness.  Materialism  may  be 
dead  as  a  philosophy,  but  it  is  alive  and  vigor¬ 
ous  as  a  passion  and  a  habit. 

The  world  is  too  much  with  us,  late  and  soon, 
Getting  and  spending,  we  lay  waste  our  powers. 

One  wonders  what  the  Wordsworth  of  the 
quiet  hills  and  vales  of  the  English  Lake  dis¬ 
trict  would  say  now,  if  he  spent  a  few  days  in 
one  of  our  rushing,  roaring  American  cities! 
Unless  belief  in  the  Christian  verities  be  clearly 
defined  and  deeply  rooted,  it  is  apt  to  be  dis¬ 
lodged  by  the  severe  pressure  of  material 
things. 

Christian  leadership  will  make  a  serious  mis¬ 
take  if  it  assumes  that  the  masses  of  the  people 
are  fairly  familiar  with  Christian  evidences. 
They  are  not.  Those  evidences  need  to  be 
stated,  illumined,  enforced  and  repeated  all 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION 


27 


over  the  land,  by  sermon,  lecture,  pamphlet 
and  volume.  It  is  possible  that  this  might 
prove  to  be  the  greatest  social  service  the 
Church  could  render  to  the  nation. 

There  are  valid  credentials  for  the  Christian 
Faith  against  which  neither  science,  philosophy 
nor  criticism  can  present  counter-arguments. 
We  have  a  wealth  of  offensive  and  defensive 
weapons  in  the  armoury  of  Faith.  Chris¬ 
tianity  need  not  ask  to  be  taken  on  intellectual 
sufferance.  There  may  be  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  believing;  it  is  well  to  remind  men  that 
there  are  greater  difficulties  in  the  way  of  not 
believing,  if  they  will  but  think  clearly. 
Scholarly  hair-splittings  are  not  necessary  in 
order  to  gain  the  adherence  of  the  average 
man.  And  it  is  to  the  average  man,  thought¬ 
ful,  practical,  and  more  or  less  open-minded 
that  I  present  several  phases  of  truth  which, 
without  pretension,  may  be  advanced  as 
Credentials  of  the  Christian  Faith. 


II 


INHERENT  PROBABILITY 


HEN  the  government  of  the  United 
States  sends  an  ambassador  to  an¬ 
other  nation,  it  accredits  him.  It 


places  certain  official  documents  in  his  hands, 
and  these  he  presents  upon  his  arrival  in  Lon¬ 
don,  Paris  or  Berlin.  A  foreign  government 
has  the  right  to  demand  these  credentials,  and 
the  ambassador  would  be  unreasonable  were 
he  to  resent  such  a  demand.  How  can  another 
government  be  sure  that  the  ambassador  is  the 
official  he  claims  to  be  if  the  credentials  are  not 
forthcoming?  Other  American  citizens  might 
pose  as  such,  and  serious  international  com¬ 
plications  might  ensue.  When  his  credentials 
are  presented  and  verified  the  way  is  open  for 
him  to  act  with  authority  on  all  matters  per¬ 
taining  to  his  office.  The  matter  of  the  cre¬ 
dentials  is  the  first  to  be  settled. 

As  I  have  already  observed,  the  Christian 
religion  announces  a  series  of  commanding 
affirmations.  These  utterances  are  not  the  re- 


INHEBENT  PEOBABILITY 


29 


sultants  of  human  observation,  reasoning,  or 
even  experience.  They  claim  to  be  Divine  dis¬ 
closures.  Christianity  does  not  portray  man’s 
slow  and  painful  ascent  toward  God,  so 
much  as  God’s  gracious  descent  to  man.  It  is 
an  incoming  of  the  Divine  into  human  life  and 
relations.  It  claims  the  place  of  supreme 
authority.  It  brooks  no  rival.  It  asks  for 
confidence,  service  and  sacrifice.  It  summons 
to  personal  surrender. 

It  is  difficult  to  imagine  how  any  demands 
could  be  more  imperious  or  unwavering.  In 
the  nature  of  the  case  Christianity  ought  to  be 
able  to  present  evidences  of  its  own  good  faith. 
The  medical  man  must  be  able,  on  demand,  to 
show  his  professional  diploma.  So  must  the 
lawyer.  The  delicate  and  valuable  interests 
with  which  they  deal  ought  to  be  safeguarded 
from  the  charlatan  and  the  pretender.  If  the 
Christian  religion  claims  Divine  authority  for 
dealing  with  the  vital  interests  of  conscience, 
character  and  destiny,  it  is  only  fair  to  expect 
it  to  furnish  reasonable  evidence  as  a  warrant 
for  such  claim.  Man  finds  himself  endowed 
with  reason  and  judgment.  These  are  the 
faculties  which  he  employs  in  dealing  with  all 
the  important  affairs  of  life.  If  man  is  to 


30  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


respond  to  religion,  he  can  only  do  so  with  the 
powers  he  has.  Reason  has  its  place  even  in 
spiritual  affairs.  Jesus  appealed  to  reason. 
‘'What  think  ye  of  Christ ?”  Reason  may 
not  be  able  to  furnish  the  final  appraisal  of  the 
disclosures  of  religion;  but  reason  is  able  to 
judge  its  credentials.  Christianity  when 
worthily  interpreted  has  never  claimed  blind 
and  unreasoning  assent.  It  is  prepared  to  state 
its  case  intelligently.  The  New  Testament 
urges  Christians  to  be  familiar  with  the 
grounds  of  their  faith,  and  to  be  able  to  state 
them.  There  is  nothing  unspiritual  about  an 
argument,  notwithstanding  the  maudlin  piety 
with  which  some  Christian  weaklings  would 
push  it  aside.  We  are  commanded  to  love  God 
with  the  mind  as  well  as  the  heart.  “  Be  ready 
always  to  give  an  answer  to  every  man  that 
asketh  you  a  reason  of  the  hope  that  is  in  you.” 
One  cannot  fail  to  be  impressed  with  the  fair¬ 
ness  of  this  New  Testament  injunction.  Peter 
assumes  that  there  is  a  reason,  and  that  Chris¬ 
tianity  is  vastly  more  than  a  thoughtless  and 
irrational  sentiment.  Aspiration,  desire,  love, 
are  gracious  and  redeeming  sentiments,  but 
they  need  to  be  woven  around  the  framework 
of  reasoned  conviction,  just  as  nature  weaves 


INHERENT  PROBABILITY 


31 


the  garment  of  flesh  around  the  skeleton.  The 
first  truth  which  I  shall  present  as  a  credential 
of  the  Faith  is  that  of  Inherent  Probability. 

Every  one  knows,  in  a  general  way,  some¬ 
thing  of  the  large  place  held  by  probability  in 
the  actual  workings  of  human  experience. 
The  decisions  we  make,  the  enterprises  we 
undertake,  the  plans  we  formulate,  even  the 
friendships  we  cherish,  are  largely  decided  by 
this  principle.  In  few  matters  are  we  able  to 
claim  absolute  certainty.  Bishop  Butler  did 
not  state  the  case  too  strongly  when  he  wrote, 
“  Probability  is  the  guide  of  life.” 

Does  the  Christian  revelation  harmonize 
with  the  inherent  probabilities  of  the  case? 
Is  there,  in  the  Nature  of  Things,  any  valid 
argument  against  a  Divine  revelation?  If 
such  an  argument  can  be  found,  it  makes  the 
task  of  Faith  in  establishing  its  claims  all  the 
more  difficult.  To  revert  to  my  former  illus¬ 
tration — if  it  were  found  that  the  man  claim¬ 
ing  to  be  the  American  Ambassador  were  un¬ 
able  to  speak  a  word  of  the  language  of  his 
nation,  his  official  claims  would  be  immediately 
marked  by  inherent  improbability.  The 
officials  of  a  European  government  would 
naturally  argue  that  it  would  be  unlikely  that 


32  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


the  American  government  would  commission  a 
man  to  act  as  its  ambassador  if  he  were  unable 
to  speak  its  language.  Does  the  principle  of 
probability  favour  or  discredit  the  idea  of  a 
Divine  revelation? 

That  lucid  thinker  and  teacher,  Dr.  Joseph 
Cook,  constantly  used  a  phrase  which  it  is 
hard  to  improve,  and  for  which  it  is  difficult 
to  find  a  substitute,  viz.,  “  The  Nature  of 
Things.”  “  The  Nature  of  Things  is  above 
and  around  and  beneath  us.”  Laying  aside 
all  preferences  and  prejudices,  all  likes 
and  dislikes,  let  us  frankly  answer  this 
question,  Is  a  Christian  revelation  likely  or 
unlikely  in  the  Nature  of  Things?  Either  we 
live  in  a  rational  universe,  or  we  do  not !  Let 
us  assume  for  the  time  being  that  the  nature 
of  things  is  penetrated  and  governed  by 
reason.  In  that  case  there  is  surely  some  re¬ 
lation  between  human  needs  and  the  resources 
of  the  universe.  Things  are  set  in  juxtaposi¬ 
tion.  Hunger  implies  food.  Thirst  implies 
water.  The  capacity  for  love  is  prophetic  of 
the  object  of  love-. 

Does  man  need  a  Divine  revelation?  Surely 
the  most  pronounced  unbeliever  will  concede 
an  affirmative  answer.  Take  the  fact  of  moral 


INHERENT  PROBABILITY 


33 


evil.  It  is  a  fact  which  all  honest  thinkers 
admit  and  deplore.  The  civilizations  of 
Greece  and  Rome  were  marked  by  brilliant 
achievements.  It  may  be  questioned  whether 
the  creations  of  Greek  art  have  ever  been  sur¬ 
passed  through  the  succeeding  ages.  Rome 
produced  statesmen,  orators,  thinkers,  poets, 
who  for  sheer  mental  ability  might  easily  chal¬ 
lenge  comparison  with  the  greatest  men  now 
living.  Yet,  on  the  day  that  Jesus  was  born 
in  Bethlehem,  more  than  half  of  the  men, 
women,  and  children  living  in  the  city  of  Rome 
were  slaves.  A  Roman  emperor  could  issue  a 
command  directing  that  the  living  body  of  one 
of  his  slaves  should  be  chopped  up  as  food  for 
pet  fishes, — and  obedience  to  such  a  command 
was  marked  by  little  or  no  comment.  One 
writer  has  said,  “  At  the  beginning  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  era  Roman  society  was  one  mighty  ulcer 
before  God.”  Even  those  who  question  the 
theology  of  St.  Paul  may  be  willing  to  admit 
his  standing  as  a  historian,  and  the  picture 
which  he  draws  of  the  heathen  world  in  his 
first  chapter  of  Romans  is  enough  to  cause  a 
shock  of  horror  to  any  healthy  conscience. 
He  is  obviously  sketching  a  civilization  which 
sought  to  reduce  sin  to  a  science.  Few  mod- 


34  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


ern  writers  had  a  greater  admiration  for  Greek 
and  Roman  life  than  had  Matthew  Arnold,  but 
loyalty  to  truth  compelled  him  to  write  the  oft- 
quoted  lines: 

On  that  hard  Pagan  world  disgust 
And  secret  loathing  fell; 

Deep-seated  weariness  and  lust 
Made  human  life  a  hell. 

The  pre-Christian  religions  seem  to  have  been 
helpless  before  the  volume  and  energy  of  the 
moral  evil  resident  in  human  nature.  This 
may  be  explained  to  some  extent  by  the  fact 
that,  in  those  systems,  there  was  no  vital  re¬ 
lation  between  religion  and  morality.  It  is  no 
lack  of  charity  which  compels  us  to  say  that 
Hindu,  Greek,  and  Roman  religions  never 
aimed  to  make  men  ethically  good.  It  is  not 
that  they  tried  and  failed;  they  never  tried. 
Dr.  Fairbairn  writes,  “  In  Greece,  religion  was 
a  matter  of  oracles  and  shrines,  of  festivals 
national  and  civil,  of  conformity  to  law  and 
custom.  The  Roman  worship  consisted  pre¬ 
eminently  in  expressions  of  joy,  in  lays  and 
songs,  in  games  and  dances,  and,  above  all,  in 
banquets.”  1  In  a  passage  full  of  significance 

1  “  The  Philosophy  of  the  Christian  Religion,”  A.  M. 
Fairbairn,  D.  D.,  p.  549. 


INHERENT  PROBABILITY 


38 

Dr.  Carnegie  Simpson  says,  “  That  a  religion 
should  concern  itself  with  character  is  to  us  a 
matter  of  course;  but  this  was  far  from  being 
the  case  in  the  great  world  into  which  the 
young  Christian  Gospel  made  its  way.  In  the 
civilization  of  the  Roman  Empire — a  civiliza¬ 
tion,  in  some  respects,  more  elaborate  than  ours 
— religion  was  something  absolutely  apart  from 
morality.  The  priests  and  augurs  of  ancient 
Greece  and  Rome  never  for  one  moment  re¬ 
garded  it  as  part  of  their  duty  to  exhort  or 
help  men  to  a  purer  life.  Alike  public  life  and 
private  were  steeped  in  a  heartlessness  of 
cruelty  and  an  abandonment  to  vice  such  as  we 
can  hardly  realize ;  but  pagan  religion  made  no 
protest,  for,  on  the  contrary,  its  mysteries  often 
screened  and  its  ministers  sanctioned  the 
grossest  iniquities/’ 2 

In  the  light  of  these  facts,  is  it  not  obvious 
that  the  world  needed  some  revelation  from 
God  which  should  be  marked  by  redeeming 
grace  and  power? 

Consider  the  instinct  for  immortality.  Man 
has  such  an  instinct.  It  is  found  in  all  lands 
and  in  all  ages. 

2 “The  Fact  of  Christ,”  P.  Carnegie  Simpson,  M.  A., 
pp.  67,  68. 


36  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


Those  that  in  barbarian  burials  killed  the  slave 
and  slew  the  wife , 

Felt  within  themselves  the  sacred  passions  of  the 
second  life. 

Indian  warriors  dream  of  ampler  hunting 
grounds  beyond  the  night, 

E'en  the  black  Australian,  dying,  hopes  he  shall 
return  a  white. 

Scepticism  has  done  its  best  to  construe  the  in¬ 
stinct  of  immortality  as  a  priestly  creation,  im¬ 
posed  upon  mankind  in  order  to  be  exploited 
for  selfish  ends.  The  belief  in  immortality  is 
far  too  deep,  too  general,  and  too  persistent  to 
admit  of  any  such  explanation.  Herbert 
Spencer  worked  very  hard  to  explain  it  in  a 
way  compatible  with  his  own  philosophy.  He 
suggested  an  origin  based  on  shadows  and 
dreams;  primitive  man  looked  in  a  pool  of 
water  and  saw  the  reflection  of  his  own  face, 
or  he  noted  the  accompaniment  of  his  own 
shadow,  or  he  dreamed  of  his  own  dead  friend 
and  regarded  the  face  in  the  dream  as  a  proof 
of  his  friend’s  existence  after  death.  This  is 
altogether  too  childish  for  serious  discussion, 
and  it  is  doubtful  if  Spencer’s  most  ardent  fol¬ 
lowers  are  satisfied  with  any  such  an  explana¬ 
tion.  That  a  human  instinct  found  over  the 
whole  habitable  world,  through  all  historic 


INHERENT  PROBABILITY 


37 


ages,  and  when  communication  between  distant 
lands  was  impossible,  can  be  accounted  for  by 
a  freak  of  thought  on  the  part  of  this  or  that 
solitary  savage,  amounts  to  an  impossibility. 
Yet  the  instinct  is  an  abiding  fact.  J.  Free¬ 
man  Clark  writes,  “  This  (the  belief  in  immor¬ 
tality)  is  found  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  in  all 
times,  among  all  classes,  however  widely 
separated  from  each  other  by  physical  and 
moral  barriers.  The  lowest  tribes  of  savages 
unite  with  the  most  sublime  philosophers  in 
this  conviction.  On  this  point  the  Hottentot 
and  the  Fiji  Islander  agree  with  Plato  and 
Aristotle.”  3 

The  Christian  Faith  is  a  verification  of  this 
instinct.  It  comes  to  man  with  the  joyous  as¬ 
surance  that  in  this  matter  he  has  not  been  de¬ 
luded  by  some  foolish  dream  or  fantasy.  It 
ratifies  his  title-deeds  to  a  priceless  inheritance. 
It  is  a  reply  from  above  to  the  calls  and  cries 
from  the  soul  within.  An  unbiased  mind  is 
almost  compelled  to  admit  that,  assuming  the 
Nature  of  Things  to  be  controlled  by  Reason, 
it  is  inherently  probable  that  the  universal  long¬ 
ing  for  immortality  should  meet  some  Divine 

8  “  Ten  Great  Religions,”  J.  Freeman  Clark,  Vol.  II, 
p.  162. 


38  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


assurance.  The  instinct  of  immortality  is  a 
world-wide,  age-long  and  pathetic  call  to  the 
Infinite;  is  it  not  inherently  probable  that  the 
Infinite,  if  rational,  will  answer  the  call?  To 
admit  this  is  to  assert  the  inherent  probability 
of  the  Christian  Faith. 

Consider  also  the  problem  of  social  and 
world-wide  relationships. 

The  sense  of  moral  evil  and  the  belief  in  im¬ 
mortality  are,  to  a  great  extent,  individual  ex¬ 
periences.  A  man  may  repudiate  any  concern 
for  the  one  and  any  interest  in  the  other.  But 
he  cannot  deny  his  place  in  a  vast  and  ever- 
enlarging  series  of  human  relations.  As  Dr. 
R.  F.  Horton  truly  says,  “  It  is  quite  impossible 
that  a  human  life  should  verify  itself  or  become 
valid  in  isolation:  only  as  part  of  a  social 
organism  can  the  individual  really  live.”  4  As 
time  goes  on  the  world  seems  to  become  smaller, 
“  and  the  race  is  more  and  more.”  We  live 
more  closely  together.  Society  becomes  in¬ 
creasingly  complex,  and  its  network  of  interests 
more  delicate,  and  more  susceptible  of  disturb¬ 
ance.  Detachment  is  more  and  more  difficult. 
Opportunities  for  trouble  multiply  through 
ever-increasing  points  of  contact.  Society  is 
4  “  Great  Issues,”  R.  F.  Horton,  D.  D.,  p.  335. 


INHERENT  PROBABILITY 


39 


split  up  into  classes,  groups,  blocs  and  interests, 
each  disposed  to  promote  its  own  ends  by  con¬ 
flict.  With  the  advancement  of  culture  come 
new  dangers  to  the  body  politic.  Science 
thrusts  its  hand  into  the  unseen  and  brings 
forth  a  blessing;  it  thrusts  its  hand  again  into 
the  unseen,  and  brings  forth  a  curse.  Chemis¬ 
try,  for  example,  is  to-day  dealing  with  ex¬ 
plosives,  gases  and  microbes  of  such  a  deadly 
nature  that  the  destruction  of  whole  civilian 
communities  in  some  future  war  is  by  no  means 
impossible.  A  man  may  deny  all  interest  in  a 
future  life,  but  he  has  no  right  to  repudiate 
interest  in  “  the  life  that  now  is.”  Surely  no 
sane  thinker  can  deny  the  proposition  that  man 
needs  some  clear  light  to  shine  upon  the  world’s 
path,  a  voice  to  direct  him,  and  a  motive,  or 
set  of  motives,  higher  and  better  than  personal 
or  group  self-interest,  if  a  worthy  future  is  to 
be  assured  for  the  race.  From  out  the  perils 
and  pitfalls  of  the  course  which  the  human 
family  must  take  issues  the  piercing  cry,  “  Who 
will  show  us  any  good  ?  ”  In  a  rational 
system  of  things  is  it  not  inherently  probable 
that  some  adequate  answer  will  be  forthcom¬ 
ing?  And  if  the  Christian  apologist  can  show 
that  the  religion  of  Jesus  is  adequate,  has  not 


40  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


that  religion  the  right  to  present  to  every  fair- 
minded  man  the  credential  of  inherent  prob¬ 
ability  ? 

Revelation  is  rational.  Its  principle  com¬ 
ports  with  the  worthiest  forms  of  human  ex¬ 
perience.  A  monarch  must  give  some  kind  of 
revelation  to  his  subjects,  or  how  can  he  expect 
loyalty?  A  government  must  announce  some 
idea  of  its  policies  and  objectives,  or  how  can 
it  command  the  confidence  of  its  citizens?  A 
father  who  would  refuse  to  disclose  himself  to 
his  own  children  would  be  adjudged  unnatural 
and  inhuman.  If  we  assume  that  God  is,  and 
that  He  sustains  any  kind  of  personal  relation¬ 
ship  to  men,  revelation  becomes  both  rational 
and  probable.  “  It  is  undeniable  that  in  every 
age  and  in  every  region  men  have  longed  for 
and  believed  in  an  external  expression  of  the 
Divine  mind.”  5  Surely  that  which  claims  to  be 
a  response  to  a  universal  craving  of  mankind 
must  be  pronounced  inherently  probable,  if  its 
contents  are  admittedly  worthy. 

I  admit  that  this  whole  argument  is  based 
upon  two  assumptions, — the  reality  of  God, 
and  the  consequent  rationality  of  the  Nature  of 

6  “  Christian  Theology,”  Dr.  W.  B.  Pope,  Vol.  I, 
P,  52. 


INHERENT  PROBABILITY 


41 


Things.  These  assumptions  will  be  challenged. 
It  is  not  likely  that  such  a  challenge  will  take 
the  form  of  blank  denial.  Atheism,  as  a 
theory,  is  impossible  of  proof.  A  negation  of 
God  is  obviously  incapable  of  verification. 
The  atheist  would  be  compelled  to  travel  to  the 
remotest  bounds  of  space,  and  to  ransack  the 
ever-receding  eternities  which  not  even  thought 
can  pursue,  before  he  would  be  able  to  bring 
back  to  our  earth  the  story  of  a  universal  blank. 
Scepticism  may  pass  adverse  judgment  both 
upon  the  credentials  and  contents  of  Faith;  it 
can  never  disprove  the  underlying  assumption 
of  Faith, — The  Reality  of  God. 

It  cannot  disprove,  but  it  can  refuse  assent. 
That  is  its  present  status.  It  proclaims  the 
inability  of  man  to  deal  with  the  subject.  It  is 
purely  agnostic.  Herbert  Spencer  is  probably 
the  recognized  leader  of  the  agnostic  position, 
and  the  substance  of  his  opinions  may  be  found 
in  a  single  sentence:  “The  Power  which  the 
universe  manifests  to  us  is  utterly  inscrutable.”8 
Does  not  this  strategic  statement  involve  an 
element  of  self-contradiction?  In  the  first 
place  Spencer  frankly  admits  that  there  is  a 
Power.  He  even  spells  the  word  with  a  capital 
6  “  First  Principles,1 ”  Herbert  Spencer,  p.  46. 


42  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


letter.  Why  P  instead  of  p?  This  is  more 
than  a  slip  of  the  pen.  There  is  a  Power. 
Spencer  says  so.  And  he  also  freely  admits 
that  this  power  “  manifests  ”  itself,  and  it 
manifests  itself  to  us,  that  is,  to  our  faculties. 
If  there  is  an  actual  Power  that  manifests  itself 
to  our  faculties,  how  can  that  Power  be  “  ut¬ 
terly  inscrutable  ”  ?  I  am  not  indulging  in 
verbal  hair-splitting  when  I  express  the  judg¬ 
ment  that  the  ideas  denoted  by  these  two  terms 
“  manifests  ”  and  “  inscrutable  ”  are  contra¬ 
dictory.  A  manifestation  is  a  manifestation  or 
disclosure  of  something, — kindness  or  cruelty, 
wisdom  or  foolishness,  beauty  or  deformity, 
love  or  hate.  It  is  as  though  Spencer  had 
said,  “  I  admit  that  there  is  an  organist  at  the 
keyboard  of  the  instrument  because  of  the 
manifestation  of  his  presence,  but  I  deny  that 
we  can  know  anything  about  him,  either  as  a 
person  or  a  player.”  If  I  cannot  know  any¬ 
thing  about  him,  how  do  I  know  he  is  there? 
Either  Spencer  admits  too  much  or  denies  too 
much  for  consistent  thinking. 

It  is  not  a  difficult  matter  for  modern  un¬ 
belief  to  assume  its  attitude  of  dissent.  It  is 
strange,  however,  that  in  so  many  instances  it 
fails  to  see  the  unworthiness  of  its  own  posi- 


INHERENT  PROBABILITY 


43 


tion.  The  world  cannot  live  on  negatives.  Not 
in  any  offensive  spirit  would  we  remind  un¬ 
belief  of  Carlyle’s  statement,  “  The  Devil  is  an 
everlasting  no.”  Unbelief  must  present  a 
statement  of  the  Nature  of  Things  more  con¬ 
vincing  to  the  intellect,  more  imperative  to  the 
conscience,  more  assuring  to  the  heart,  than  the 
Christian  statement,  before  it  can  claim  the 
respect  of  independent  thinkers. 

Some  time  ago  a  young  man  left  home  for 
college.  He  had  received  a  Christian  training, 
and  was  a  sincere  adherent  of  the  Christian 
Faith.  After  nearly  four  years  of  college  life, 
during  which  he  had  specialized  in  Science,  he 
wrote  these  words  to  a  friend,  “At  last  I  am 
at  perfect  intellectual  peace; — I  no  longer  be¬ 
lieve  anything.”  Apparently  he  failed  to  sense 
the  bankruptcy  of  his  own  condition.  Believ¬ 
ing  nothing,  how  could  he  stand  for  anything, 
or  fight  for  anything,  or  be  willing  to  die  for 
anything?  He  did  not  see  that,  having  dis¬ 
carded  the  Christian  interpretation  of  life,  it 
was  incumbent  upon  him  to  state  a  worthier 
one.  In  a  luminous  chapter  of  his  book,  “  The 
Reality  of  Faith,”  Dr.  Newman  Smyth  points 
out  “  the  difficulty  of  not  believing.”  He 
writes,  “As  a  matter  of  fact,  every  man  does 


44  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


believe  vastly  more  than  he,  or  any  one  else  on 
the  face  of  the  earth,  ever  understood.  You 
believe  in  oxygen,  hydrogen,  electricity,  and  the 
ultimate  particles  and  forces  of  matter.  You 
do  not  understand  them  any  more  than  you 
understand  what  the  wings  of  angels  may  be 
made  of.  .  .  .  A  man  who  tries  to  sail 

across  this  life  to  the  unknown  shore  without 
faith,  has  a  much  more  serious  task  to  perform 
upon  himself  than  simply  to  unload  himself  of 
so  many  accustomed  beliefs;  he  may  throw 
overboard  human  traditions,  but  to  get  rid  of 
faith  he  cannot  stop  with  the  cargo;  he  will 
have  to  hew  at  the  knees  of  the  ship ;  in  fact  he 
will  have  to  take  out  the  keel:  for  all  our 
knowledge,  and  all  our  life,  so  richly  furnished, 
are  built  upon  faith,  as  the  ship  is  built  into  the 
keel.”  7 

Unbelief  must  account  for  things.  Herbert 
Spencer  truly  says,  “  The  assumption  of  the 
existence  of  a  First  Cause  of  the  Universe  is  a 
necessity  of  thought.”  The  principle  of  cau¬ 
sality  is  part  of  our  mental  make-up.  We  seem 
to  be  compelled  to  interpret  all  phenomena  by 
the  principle  of  causation.  The  child  standing 

7 “The  Reality  of  Faith,"  Newman  Smyth,  D.  D.,  pp. 
100-102. 


INHERENT  PROBABILITY 


45 


before  a  machine  asks  its  parent,  “  What 
makes  the  wheels  go  round  ?  ”  In  asking  that 
question  he  is  assuming  the  same  kind  of  atti¬ 
tude  toward  the  universe  as  that  assumed  by  a 
Kant,  or  a  Liebnitz,  or  a  Spencer.  He  is  grop¬ 
ing  his  way  toward  the  mystery  of  Cause.  It 
is  morally  certain  that  the  universe  is  the  prod¬ 
uct  of  an  Infinite  Cause  which  Christian  Faith 
calls  God,  or  it  is  the  product  of  a  series  of 
finite  causes.  But  a  succession  of  finite  causes 
which  never  had  a  beginning  is  unthinkable. 
No  matter  how  long  the  chain  of  finite  causes 
may  be,  its  first  link  must  be  attached  to  some¬ 
thing,  or  down  falls  the  whole  chain.  Unbe¬ 
lief,  having  set  aside  the  Christian  Faith,  must 
face  the  task  of  accounting  for  the  universe  by 
a  succession  of  finite  causes,  which  is  unthink¬ 
able.  As  an  honourable  and  courageous 
thinker,  the  unbeliever  cannot  run  away  from 
his  task.  And  he  dare  not  seek  escape  by  fall¬ 
ing  back  upon  the  absurd  idea  that  all  existing 
things  have  spontaneously  sprung  out  of  abso¬ 
lute  nothingness.  “  Ex  nihilo  nihil  fit  ” ;  out  of 
nothing,  nothing  comes.  Multiply  zero  by 
infinity,  and  the  result  is  not  infinity,  but  zero. 

He  must  account  for  the  intelligence  of  the 
Nature  of  Things.  Just  as  certainly  as  Nature 


40  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


is  interpreted  by  intelligence  does  it  represent 
intelligence.  The  two  go  together.  When  I 
scan  the  page  of  a  book,  I  find  that  there  is 
some  relationship  between  my  mental  powers 
and  the  intelligence  reflected  on  the  page.  That 
is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  the  intelli¬ 
gence  of  the  writer  is  all  of  a  piece  with  the 
intelligence  of  the  reader.  I  may  not  accept 
the  teaching  of  the  page.  I  may  dispute  some 
of  the  statements.  I  may  object  to  the  argu¬ 
ments  used.  I  may  criticize  the  style.  But 
beneath  all  these  matters  I  detect  upon  the  page 
the  working  of  a  mind  akin  to  my  own.  If  the 
page  were  covered  by  the  scrawlings  of  an  idiot 
it  would  be  utterly  meaningless  to  me.  The 
contents  of  the  page  can  only  be  understood  by 
my  mind  as  they  are  the  expression  of  a  mind 
akin  to  my  own.  “  The  speech  of  the  mad  is 
ridiculous  to  the  sane;  the  speech  of  the  sane 
has  no  meaning  to  the  mad.”  Can  nature  be  in¬ 
terpreted  by  mind?  Does  it  unfold  itself  to 
reason  as  a  work  of  art  unfolds  itself  to  the 
artistic  sense,  or  as  a  mighty  oratorio  awakens 
response  in  the  soul  of  a  music-lover?  To  ask 
this  question  is  to  answer  it!  All  our  vast 
and  varied  wealth  of  scientific  knowledge  is  due 
to  the  fact  that  there  is  an  element  of  intelli- 


INHERENT  PROBABILITY 


47 


gence  in  Nature  which  corresponds  to  intelli¬ 
gence  in  man.  The  two  are  akin.  They  are 
both  the  expression  of  a  single  supreme 
intelligence.  That  supreme  intelligence  we  call 
God.  Can  unbelief  explain  this  situation  more 
reasonably  and  more  convincingly? 

Unbelief  must  account  for  the  origin  of  life. 
It  must  face  the  stern  fact  that  an  unthinkable 
chasm  separates  the  non-living  from  the  living. 
Biogenesis,  or  the  principle  that  all  life  is  de¬ 
rived  from  life,  still  holds  the  field,  and  the 
most  persistent  efforts  to  dislodge  it  have  failed. 
The  meaning  of  this  fact  may  be  made  clearer 
by  the  use  of  a  hypothetical  case.  The  Govern¬ 
ment  of  the  United  States  may  decide  to 
create,  equip  and  endow  the  greatest  scientific 
school  in  the  world.  We  can  imagine  it 
manned  by  a  select  group  of  experts,  including 
chemists,  biologists,  anatomists,  physicists  and 
anthropologists.  The  national  government 
stands  ready  to  furnish  this  institution  with 
anything  that  it  asks,  in  order  that  Science  may 
be  unhampered  in  its  onward  march.  Suppose 
I  go  to  these  experts  and  ask  them  to  unite  their 
efforts  in  the  production  of  a  grain  of  wheat 
from  dead  matter,  stipulating  that  it  shall  con¬ 
tain  the  germ  of  life,  making  it  capable  of 


48  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


growth  and  reproduction.  The  scientists  in 
question  would  resent  my  proposal,  probably 
telling  me  that  it  was  not  the  function  of 
Science  to  perform  miracles.  But  Life  is  here. 
And  according  to  scientific  authority  the  mat¬ 
ter  of  the  universe  at  one  time  absolutely  pro¬ 
hibited  the  possibility  of  life.  If  a  group  of 
the  greatest  scientists  in  the  world  cannot  now 
produce  life  from  dead  matter,  how  could  it 
have  been  produced  when  there  was  no  mind 
to  direct  and  no  hand  to  shape?  If  it  cannot 
be  done  now  under  the  management  of  the 
most  brilliant  minds,  how  could  it  have  been 
effected  in  the  utter  absence  of  all  intelligence? 

Unbelief  must  answer  this!  The  principle 
of  evolution,  with  which  the  name  of  Darwin 
will  ever  be  honourably  associated,  does  not 
meet  the  situation.  Evolution  does  not  create. 
Only  that  can  be  evolved  which  is  first  of  all 
involved.  In  effect  Darwin  said,  “  If  you  will 
give  me  an  indefinite  number  of  germs  of  life 
in  a  suitable  environment,  I  will  show  you  what 
wonderful  developments  they  may  assume.” 
This  was  equivalent  to  a  demand  for  an  in¬ 
definite  number  of  miracles  with  which  to  start 
upon  his  most  entrancing  theory.  The  man 
who  discards  belief  in  the  free  action  of  a 


INHERENT  PROBABILITY 


49 


creative  will  must  look  this  situation  squarely 
in  the  face  and  account  for  it.  He  must  not 
use  words  lightly  and  flippantly  to  cover  the 
unthinkable  margin  between  the  non-living  and 
the  living.  Let  it  be  distinctly  understood  that 
evolution  does  not  create  life,  that  Science  has 
never  yet  discovered  a  clear  case  of  sponta¬ 
neous  generation,  and  that  Darwin  would  be 
among  the  first  to  concede  that,  as  far  as 
human  intelligence  can  discern,  life  only  came 
from  life. 

Unbelief  must  also  account  for  the  origin  of 
mind.  The  German  scientist  Karl  Vogt  did 
not  hesitate  to  make  this  statement,  “  The  brain 
secretes  thought  as  the  liver  secretes  bile.,? 
The  only  difference  between  Vogt  and  materi¬ 
alists  in  general  is  that  he  was  more  frank  and 
outspoken  than  the  others.  His  position  is  the 
logical  conclusion  of  the  premises  of  material¬ 
ism.  Assert  the  reality  of  thought  and  at  the 
same  time  deny  the  spiritual  elements  of  ex¬ 
perience,  and  the  conclusion  is  obvious — 
thought  is  to  the  brain  as  bile  is  to  the  liver. 
Now  bile  and  liver  are  in  the  same  category  of 
things.  Like  produces  like.  Bile  can  be 
stated  in  terms  of  magnitude,  colour  and 
chemical  analysis,  just  as  can  the  liver.  Can 


50  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


thought  be  so  stated?  Can  the  scientist  place 
thought  beneath  his  microscope  and  describe  it 
in  chemical  terms?  Can  he  even  find  it? 
Vogt’s  daring  statement  utterly  breaks  down. 
The  brain  does  not  secrete  thought  as  the  liver 
secretes  bile.  Was  not  James  Russell  Lowell 
face  to  face  with  the  truth  on  this  matter  when 
he  wrote 

We  who  believe  life's  bases  rest 

Beyond  the  probe  of  chemic  test 

Still  know  and  feel  that  Thou  art  near f 

The  poet  was  the  real  scientist.  Thought, 
with  all  its  wealth  and  wonder,  finds  its  origin 
in  that  which  lies  “  beyond  the  probe  of  chemic 
test.” 

Unbelief  must  account  for  all  that  is  highest 
and  greatest  in  man,  or  its  whole  philosophy 
breaks  down.  It  is  in  the  realm  of  thought 
that  we  find  man  at  his  highest.  And  the 
higher  he  rises  in  this  realm,  the  more  impos¬ 
sible  becomes  the  task  of  materialism  in  seek¬ 
ing  to  explain  him.  It  is  not  difficult  to  point 
out  the  striking  resemblances  between  man  and 
the  highest  order  of  the  apes.  Theology  does 
not  deny  these  resemblances.  Is  Science  will¬ 
ing  to  admit  the  still  more  striking  differences 


INHEBENT  PEOB ABILITY 


51 


between  man  and  the  highest  order  of  apes? 
For  the  differences  vastly  outweigh  and  out¬ 
number  the  resemblances!  Man  has  moved 
upward  from  lowly  origins  to  almost  supernal 
heights  of  life.  He  has  built  stately  homes 
and  splendid  cities.  He  has  tunnelled  the 
mountains  and  bridged  the  rivers.  He  directs 
floating  palaces  across  the  oceans,  and  has 
coaxed  the  suns  and  stars  to  tell  him  their 
secrets.  He  sends  his  wireless  message  across 
a  continent,  and  even  flies  beyond  the  clouds. 
He  has  created  priceless  treasures  of  literature, 
and  by  their  ministries  the  noblest  of  the  dead 
still  speak  to  the  living.  He  has  given  to  the 
world  works  of  art  which  have  endured  for 
hundreds  of  years,  and  will  endure  for  thou¬ 
sands  yet  to  come.  He  has  projected  his 
prayers  and  his  faith  far  into  the  unseen,  for 
uncounted  millions  have  declared  with  Paul — • 
“  our  citizenship  is  in  the  Eternal.”  The  con¬ 
sciousness  of  immortality  has  flooded  his  being 
with  a  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land. 
He  has  laughed  at  impossibilities,  and  on  the 
loftiest  heights  he  waves  the  flag  of  victory. 
Where  is  the  ape?  As  far  as  science  can  tell 
us,  exactly  where  he  was  a  hundred  thousand 
years  ago.  He  dwells  in  the  same  haunts,  eats 


52  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


the  same  food,  and  pursues  the  same  habits. 
He  has  never  yet  kindled  a  fire,  cooked  a  meal, 
written  a  line,  woven  a  garment,  or  risen  one 
inch  above  the  level  of  instinctive  life.  If 
science  can  prove  that  the  highest  form  of 
animal  life  was,  in  the  physical  sense,  the 
original  progenitor  of  the  human  race,  let  it  do 
so.  In  that  case,  however,  one  fact  is  obvious. 
Something  extraordinary  happened.  The 
chasm  between  the  ape  and  man  is  so  vast  that 
only  some  extraordinary  experience  could  have 
bridged  it.  Faith  sees  the  creative  hand  of 
God  in  this  situation.  That  Faith  is  through¬ 
out  rational.  It  feels  itself  sustained  by  the 
principle  of  inherent  probability.  Standing  in 
the  august  Hall  of  Reason  it  is  prepared  to 
stake  very  much,  if  not  all,  on  the  simple 
affirmation,  “  Looking  at  the  vast  expanse 
separating  the  animal  from  the  human  world, 
it  is  much  more  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
something  extraordinary  happened,  than  that 
the  animal,  unaided,  unguided,  crossed  that 
chasm.”  What  was  that  something  extra¬ 
ordinary  but  the  free  action  of  an  Infinite  and 
Interested  Intelligence?  “Man  became  a  liv¬ 
ing  soul.” 8 


8  Genesis  2 :  7. 


INHERENT  PROBABILITY 


53 


The  biologist  must  remember  that  he  has  not 
an  eternity  to  draw  upon  for  the  accumulation 
of  very  slow  and  very  small  changes.  The 
moment  he  assumes  that  position  he  crosses 
swords  with  the  great  physicists  like  Tait  and 
Kelvin ! 

The  constructive  task  of  Materialism  is  an 
impossible  one.  Things  are  as  they  are. 
They  demand  some  explanation  which  shall  be 
stamped  with  the  marks  of  probability  and 
reasonableness.  The  task  of  Faith  is  not  an 
easy  one,  nor  are  its  burdens  light.  We  admit 
the  difficulties  which  belief  must  face,  and  the 
sincerity  with  which  many  awkward  questions 
are  raised.  But  to  run  away  from  the  diffi¬ 
culties  of  Faith  is  to  run  into  the  still  greater 
difficulties  of  unbelief.  Yet  along  one  or  other 
of  these  two  pathways  the  inquiring  mind  of 
man  must  travel.  It  is  not  a  rigid  dogmatism, 
nor  an  unreasoning  prejudice,  but  a  clear-eyed 
and  open-minded  appreciation  of  all  the  facts 
of  the  case  which  prompts  us  to  claim  Inherent 
Probability  as  a  valid  Credential  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Faith. 


Ill 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER 


THE  self-disclosure  of  God  constitutes 
the  essential  truth  of  the  Christian  re¬ 
ligion.  “  God  who  at  sundry  times 
and  in  divers  manners  spake  in  time  past  unto 
the  fathers  by  the  prophets,  hath  in  these  last 
days  spoken  unto  us  by  (or  in)  his  Son.” 1 
God  has  spoken.  Christianity  is  not  a  human 
evolution,  but  a  Divine  revelation.  Should  it 
be  stripped  of  this  truth,  Faith  would  represent 
little  more  than  a  series  of  hopes,  aspirations 
and  struggles.  Under  such  conditions  it  might 
have  some  value,  as  other  spiritual  movements 
have  value,  but  it  could  never  speak  to  a  needy 
world  in  terms  of  final  authority. 

We  have  shown  that  all  the  probabilities  of 
the  case  point  to  some  form  of  Divine  revela¬ 
tion  to  man.  There  is  nothing  in  the  constitu¬ 
tion  of  human  nature,  nor  in  the  system  of 
things  surrounding  it,  that  precludes  some  such 
self-disclosure  on  the  part  of  God. 

The  question  arises, — “  What  are  men  will- 

1  Hebrews  I :  I. 

54 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  55 


in g  to  accept  as  reasonable  credentials  of  such 
a  Faith  ?  ” 

Here  we  meet  much  inconsistency,  if  not 
downright  self-contradiction.  One  can  easily 
imagine  a  dialogue  between  an  ordinary  un¬ 
believer  and  a  Christian  apologist  of  the  older 
school: 

Unbeliever:  The  Christian  Faith  makes  a 
great  demand  on  me  when  it  asks  me  to  accept 
and  adopt  it.  Before  I  can  accede  to  this  de¬ 
mand  it  must  give  me  some  convincing  proof 
that  its  claims  are  valid. 

Apologist  (of  the  older  school)  :  Very  well. 
Think  of  the  act  of  Jesus  in  feeding  the  multi¬ 
tude  with  five  loaves  and  two  fishes;  think  of 
His  act  in  giving  sight  to  the  blind;  think  of 
Him  raising  Lazarus  from  the  dead! 

Unbeliever:  I  cannot  accept  these  state¬ 
ments  since  they  involve  miracle.  I  am  quite 
convinced  of  the  truth  of  the  words  “  Miracles 
do  not  happen/’  as  stated  by  Squire  Wendover 
in  “  Robert  Elsmere.” 

In  other  words,  the  attitude  of  the  unbeliever 
is  likely  to  be  as  follows — “  I  cannot  believe  in 
the  Christian  religion  unless  it  is  guaranteed  to 
me  by  miracle;  but  unfortunately  I  cannot  be¬ 
lieve  in  miracle  because,  as  every  one  knows, 
miracle  involves  a  violation  of  the  laws  of 
nature.” 


56  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


This  is  not  an  unfair  statement  of  the  at¬ 
titude  that  many  assume  toward  the  Christian 
evangel. 

For  many  years  a  great  battle  has  been 
fought  around  the  word  miracle.  Possibly 
much  of  the  bitterness  of  the  conflict  has  been 
due  to  misunderstanding,  and  to  an  inadequate 
definition  of  terms.  It  might  be  well  to  go 
beyond  this  historic  quarrel,  seeking  truth  by 
another  route.  Surely  it  would  be  fair  for 
the  apologist  to  say  to  the  unbeliever — “  Grant¬ 
ing  the  existence  of  a  free  and  intelligent  God, 
how  would  you  expect  Him  to  come  into  con¬ 
tact  with  men,  and  reveal  Himself  to  the 
race  ?  ” 

Christianity  teaches  that  God  meets  the 
spiritual  needs  of  men,  discloses  Himself  to 
them,  becomes  their  Helper  and  Redeemer,  and 
gives  them  victory  over  the  evils  of  the  world, 
through  a  person;  and  it  presents  the  character 
of  that  Person  as  one  of  the  greatest  Creden¬ 
tials  of  the  Faith. 

Could  any  other  view  be  more  reasonable? 
It  is  obvious  that  religion  deals  with  person¬ 
ality  and  personal  relations.  Revelation 
through  personality  would  appear  to  be  the 
most  probable  method. 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  67 


It  is  certain  that  we  reveal  ourselves  to  our 
children  by  immediate  contact.  Not  by  mere 
messages,  verbal  statements  or  mechanical 
systems  do  we  make  ourselves  known  to  them. 
It  is  almost  impossible  to  suggest  any  form  of 
personal  contact  more  direct  than  that  which 
obtains  between  parent  and  child.  Our  chil¬ 
dren  come  to  know  us  through  our  care  for 
them,  our  comradeship  with  them,  and  our 
sacrifices  in  their  behalf.  Personality  dom¬ 
inates  everything.  Is  it  not  probable  that 
God’s  revelation  will  assume  a  similar  form? 
When  the  Mormons  seek  to  assure  us  that  God 
wrote  a  revelation  of  Himself  and  hid  it  away 
in  a  stone  box,  miraculously  directing  the  foot¬ 
steps  of  Joseph  Smith  to  its  discovery,  every 
rational  and  spiritual  sensibility  is  repelled  by 
the  crudeness  of  the  idea.  We  are  impressed 
by  the  sheer  improbability  of  the  whole  pro¬ 
cedure.  The  deep  and  awful  needs  of  the 
world  can  never  be  met  by  a  mere  series  of 
statements,  no  matter  whether  verbal  or 
written.  As  Dr.  Denney  says — “  The  mere 
telling  is  nothing.”  Truth  to  be  effective  must 
be  personalized.  It  is  more  than  a  mere 
accident  that  Christianity  recognizes  this,  and 
makes  personality  the  vehicle  of  truth. 


58  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


Jesus  Was  a  Historical  Person 
This  fact  has  been  disputed.  In  some 
quarters  it  is  disputed  to-day.  In  seeking  to 
destroy  the  historical  fact  of  Christ,  unbelief 
has  shown  a  daring  marked  by  a  certain  degree 
of  logical  consistency.  The  value  of  Christ  to 
Christianity  was  too  great  for  unbelief  to 
ignore.  As  Dr.  Denney  truly  says,— He  is 
more  to  us  who  believe  in  Him  than  Moses  to 
the  Jew,  Sakya  Muni  to  the  Buddhist,  or 
Mohammed  to  the  Moslem.  ” 2  The  value  of 
the  Hebrew  religion  would  abide  were  the  per¬ 
sonality  of  Moses  to  be  reduced  to  a  myth. 
The  contributions  of  Buddhism  to  the  thought 
and  life  of  millions  would  remain  if  the  name 
of  its  founder  were  never  uttered  again.  It  is 
not  so  with  the  Founder  and  the  fortunes  of 
the  Christian  Faith.  Apparently  Jesus  staked 
everything  upon  Himself.  Sceptic  though  he 
was,  Renan  was  not  far  from  the  truth  when 
he  said,  “  Jesus  taught  nothing  but  Himself.” 
If  unbelief  could  remove  the  name  of  Christ 
from  the  field  of  historic  fact  it  would  achieve 
for  itself  its  greatest  triumph.  It  has  boldly 
attempted  this.  During  the  first  decade  of  this 
century  Professor  Drews  lectured  to  great 
2  “  Studies  in  Theology,”  James  Denney,  D.  D.,  p.  28. 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  59 


masses  of  men  in  Berlin.  The  denial  of  the 
historic  reality  of  Jesus  constituted  his  theme. 
The  popularity  of  his  lectures  was  ominous. 
It  was  an  unconscious  preparation  for  the  act 
of  Germany  a  decade  later,  in  shocking  the 
conscience  of  the  world  by  initiating  the  great¬ 
est  and  most  criminal  war  of  the  ages.  In 
England  Mr.  J.  M.  Robertson  and  others  em¬ 
barked  upon  a  similar  effort,  but  they  have  not 
met  with  much  general  response  from  the 
public.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  every 
unprejudiced  thinker  finds  it  easier  to  accept 
all  the  narratives  which  gather  about  the  per¬ 
son  of  Jesus  in  the  Gospels,  even  though  each 
might  involve  miracle,  than  to  account  for 
Christianity  without  the  historic  person  of 
Christ. 

It  is  contended  that  some  of  the  ideas  of  the 
Christian  Faith  can  be  traced,  perhaps  in 
cruder  form,  to  the  systems  of  Babylon,  Persia 
and  Greece,  especially  Babylon.  Possibly ! 
But  to  admit  this  is  to  suggest  the  gropings  of 
ancient  systems  toward  the  Light  rather  than 
the  denial  of  the  One  who  was  God’s  Light  to 
a  darkened  world.  Many  years  ago  Dr.  W.  B. 
Pope  used  a  short  sentence  covering  a  great 
truth,  “  Heathenism  is  but  perverted  Deism.” 


60  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


There  is  a  sharp  and  shallow  ingenuity  that  can 
disprove  nearly  everything,  even  the  things  of 
unquestioned  historic  validity.  Archbishop 
Whately  gave  a  convincing  evidence  of  this  in 
his  classic  work,  “  Historic  Doubts  Concern¬ 
ing  the  Existence  of  Napoleon.”  The  dis¬ 
tinguished  prelate  clearly  showed  that  the  same 
arguments  used  to  disprove  New  Testament 
history  might  be  used  just  as  consistently  to 
disprove  the  existence  of  Napoleon. 

When  a  noted  scholar  like  Jensen  writes  a 
thousand  pages  to  show  that  all  Bible  history 
is  but  legend,  and  that  the  outstanding  per¬ 
sonalities  of  both  Testaments,  including  our 
Lord  Himself,  are  only  mythical  forms  of  a 
Babylonian  epic,  one  thing  is  sure.  That  one 
sure  and  obvious  conclusion  is  that  unbelief  is 
compelled  to  resort  to  desperate  expedients. 
In  the  name  of  reason  it  acts  with  wild  and 
reckless  unreason. 

For  what  are  the  facts  regarding  Jesus? 
Reduced  to  an  irreducible  minimum,  what  do 
we  find?  In  the  New  Testament  we  are  pre¬ 
sented  with  the  life  and  death  of  one  whom 
Faith  regards  as  the  greatest  Person  of  history. 
His  character  was  without  a  stain;  He  em¬ 
bodied  the  highest  graces  and  virtues  which  the 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  61 

human  mind  has  ever  been  able  to  conceive; 
He  furnished  ideals  of  conduct  which,  after  the 
flight  of  two  thousand  years,  are  far  beyond 
our  highest  attainment;  He  stirred  the  sleep¬ 
ing  forces  of  the  spirit-world  of  His  day  as  the 
waters  of  some  inland  lake  are  swept  by  a 
wind  from  the  hills;  He  inspired  such  loyalty 
on  the  part  of  His  immediate  followers  as 
made  them  face  the  greatest  martyrdoms  of 
history  almost  without  a  tremor.  Now  if 
Jesus  was  not  a  historic  person  it  is  obvious 
that  He  was  nothing  more  than  an  artistic 
creation.  In  other  words,  we  are  asked  to  be¬ 
lieve  that  this  wondrous  figure  is  the  creation 
of  a  group  of  illiterate  followers,  steeped  in  a 
narrow  Judaism,  themselves  the  creatures  of  a 
sordid  and  cruel  age.  This,  at  least  in  sub¬ 
stance,  is  the  position  which  must  be  taken  by 
those  who  question  the  historic  reality  of 
Jesus.  Let  any  man  who  is  headed  in  such  a 
direction  recall  the  ringing  challenge  of  Theo¬ 
dore  Parker,  “  It  would  take  a  Christ  to  forge 
a  Christ.” 

If  one  is  looking  in  all  the  realms  of  life  and 
literature  for  downright  intellectual  perver¬ 
sity,  one  may  surely  find  it  in  these  lines  from 
the  pen  of  Professor  Schweitzer, — “  The  Jesus 


62  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


of  Nazareth  who  came  forward  publicly  as  the 
Messiah,  who  preached  the  ethic  of  the  King¬ 
dom  on  earth,  and  died  to  give  his  work  its 
final  consecration,  never  had  any  existence . 
He  is  a  figure  endowed  with  life  by  liberalism, 
and  clothed  by  modern  theology  in  an  historical 
garb.  .  .  .  Not  the  historical  Jesus,  but 

the  Spirit  which  goes  forth  from  him,  and  in 
the  spirits  of  men  strives  for  new  influence  and 
rule,  is  that  which  overcomes  the  world !  ” 3 
It  was  in  reference  to  this  kind  of  drivel  that 
Dr.  .Ballard  wrote:  “Even  a  child  may  be 
trusted  to  see  that  this  amounts  to  affirming 
that  a  superstructure  acted  before  it  came  into 
existence,  by  laying  its  own  foundations.”  It 
would  be  difficult  to  frame  a  juster  or  more 
withering  criticism.  In  some  measure  we  must 
share  the  feeling  of  horror,  felt  by  many 
devout  believers,  at  such  mingled  impudence 
and  irreverence,  but  we  need  not  rest  finally  in 
such  an  emotion.  The  attacks  of  such  men 
upon  the  historic  reality  of  Jesus  is,  on  their 
part,  an  unconscious  tribute  to  Him.  It  is 
their  confession  that  as  long  as  the  Person  of 
Jesus  stands  as  a  fact  of  history,  Christianity 

8  “  The  Quest  of  the  Historical  Jesus,”  Professor 
Schweitzer,  pp.  396-399. 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  63 


stands  with  it.  They  are  logical  enough  to  see 
that  little  is  gained  for  unbelief  by  seeking  to 
dislodge  this  or  that  part  of  the  Gospel  nar¬ 
rative  as  long  as  the  greatest  fact  of  all  sur¬ 
vives.  It  is  like  stripping  a  tiny  twig  or  two 
from  a  massive,  living  tree.  Hence  the  bolder 
and  more  desperate,  but  utterly  hopeless  attack. 

Whatever  Jesus  was,  we  may  be  sure  that 
the  overwhelming  mass  of  sincere  men  and 
women  will  concede  that  He  was  a  real  person, 
occupying  a  definite  place  in  the  life  and  for¬ 
tunes  of  mankind. 

Jesus  Embodies  the  Sinless  Life 

Throughout  the  whole  of  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  the  character  of  Jesus  is  presented  as 
sinless.  Unprejudiced  study  of  the  Gospel 
story  shows  a  spirit  of  independence  on  the 
part  of  each  writer.  It  cannot  be  said  that 
any  one  writer  is  the  slave  of  another.  In¬ 
deed,  the  freedom  with  which  each  writer  de¬ 
scribes  the  same  events  has  been  made  the 
target  of  sceptical  attack  on  the  charge  of 
discrepancies.  Unbelief  is  hard  to  please. 
If  two  narratives  vary  in  their  wording  they 
are  very  likely  to  be  discredited  because  of  their 
discrepancies ;  if  they  closely  agree,  one  writer 


64  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


or  the  other  will  probably  be  called  a  copyist. 
Admitting  considerable  variation  of  statement, 
we  cannot  but  be  impressed  with  the  sinlessness 
of  the  Master  as  evidenced  by  each  of  the  nar¬ 
ratives,  and  by  every  reference  to  His  life  in 
the  Epistles.  This  is  a  truth  which  is  not  so 
much  proved  as  assumed,  and  evidenced  at  each 
stage  of  the  history. 

The  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
describes  Him  as  “  holy,  harmless,  undefiled, 
separate  from  sinners.,,  4  This  may  be  regarded 
as  the  substance  of  the  whole  of  the  New 
Testament  in  its  verdict  on  the  sinless  life  of 
the  Master.  The  words  used  to  portray  this 
phase  of  our  Lord's  life  are  simple,  but  very 
definite.  He  is  described  as  “  holy.”  The 
word  in  the  original  Greek  is  not  the  one  fre¬ 
quently  used  to  indicate  the  setting  aside  of 
some  object  for  sacred  use;  it  means  rather  a 
character  marked  by  pure  and  unquestioned 
goodness.  He  is  also  described  as  “harm¬ 
less  ” ;  He  manifested  the  qualities  of  tender¬ 
ness,  compassion  and  benevolence. 

Nothing  ever  emanated  from  His  person 
which  even  tended  to  hurt  or  harm  anything 
of  worth.  He  was  “  undefiled.”  He  moved 

4  Hebrews  ^ :  26. 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  65 


through  an  evil  environment,  walked  up  and 
down  the  paths  of  an  evil  world,  came  into 
close  contact  with  the  sinful  and  sordid  lives 
of  His  day,  yet  was  never  tarnished.  “  He 
was  separate  from  sinners.”  They  surrounded 
Him,  pressed  in  upon  Him,  ate  and  drank  with 
Him, — yet,  someway  or  other,  never  defiled 
Him.  He  was  so  near  to  them  that  He 
clasped  their  hands,  while  their  children  played 
around  His  feet,  yet  He  was  “  separate  ”  from 
them,  even  as  the  lily  is  separate  from  the  soil 
in  which  it  grows.  Jesus  attacked  sinful  cus¬ 
toms,  vested  interests  and  privileged  evils,  with 
the  inevitable  result  that  He  made  bitter  per¬ 
sonal  enemies.  His  acts  were  closely  scruti¬ 
nized,  and  every  word  that  fell  from  His  lips 
was  studied  in  order  to  furnish  the  material 
for  an  indictment.  The  typical  Pharisee  and 
Sadducee  would  have  given  much  for  proof  of 
any  moral  lapse  on  His  part.  Unconsciously 
Pontius  Pilate  spoke  for  all  of  Christ’s  critics 
when  he  confessed,  “  I  find  in  Him  no  fault  at 
all.”  For  nineteen  centuries  keen  and  critical 
eyes  have  looked  upon  Him,  and  His  character 
has  been  subjected  to  the  severest  tests.  The 
results  of  these  enquiries  have  endorsed  the 
verdict  of  Pilate. 


66  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


There  was  not  the  slightest  suggestion  of 
personal  evil  in  Christ’s  own  consciousness. 
He  summoned  others  to  repent,  yet  He  never 
repented.  He  heard  other  men  confess  their 
sins,  but  He  never  made  any  confession  of 
sin;  He  taught  others  to  pray  for  forgiveness, 
yet  in  all  His  reported  prayers  He  never  be¬ 
sought  forgiveness  for  Himself.  He  chal¬ 
lenged  others  to  convict  Him,  and  as  Dr. 
Denney  very  truly  says  “  it  would  have  been  the 
worst  insincerity  if,  when  He  challenged 
others,  or  rather  defied  them,  to  convict  Him 
of  sin,  He  had  been  able  to  convict  Him¬ 
self.’’  5 

Personal  holiness  has  been  the  haunting 
dream  and  the  impassioned  quest  of  the  noblest 
saints  through  all  the  intervening  ages.  To 
attain  this  great  spiritual  objective  they  have 
wept  and  prayed  and  fasted.  Adopting  mis¬ 
taken  forms  of  spiritual  action  they  have  even 
resorted  to  penance  and  self-torture,  hoping 
by  the  pains  of  the  body  to  atone  for  the  sins 
of  the  soul.  They  did  this  to  gain  something 
which  Jesus  was  in  Himself.  This  phase  of 
the  subject  has  been  eloquently  stated  by  Fair- 
bairn,  “  Stones  have  been  worn  smooth  by  the 
5  “  Studies  in  Theology,”  James  Denney,  D.  D.,  p.  41. 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  67 


knees  of  His  penitents;  martyrs  have  died  at 
the  stake  for  His  name,  rejoicing  amid  the 
flames  and  insensible  to  pain;  the  poor  have 
been  served  more  assiduously  than  He  ever 
served  them,  and  the  diseased  have  been  minis¬ 
tered  to  with  a  care  and  a  tenderness  He  never 
surpassed.  The  hermit  or  the  monk  who  for¬ 
sook  the  world  that  he  might  give  himself 
wholly  to  the  worship  of  God,  has  in  bodily 
mortification  gone  beyond  anything  that  is  re¬ 
corded  of  Jesus;  while  the  nun,  who  has  hidden 
herself  in  the  cloister  that  she  may  attain  white¬ 
ness  of  soul,  has  surrendered  herself  to  a 
severer  discipline  than  He  ever  practised.  Yet 
these  are  but  the  strenuous  labours  of  persons 
who  are  miserable  through  their  great  desire  to 
win  by  personal  effort  what  He  possessed  by 
nature.  He  lived  embosomed  in  Deity,  filled, 
penetrated,  transfigured  by  a  God  ...  of 
transcendant  ethical  severity,  whose  truth  could 
suffer  no  falsehood,  who  was  the  light  which 
could  bear  no  darkness,  the  good  which  could 
tolerate  no  evil,  the  life  which  overcame  death, 
the  love  that  cast  out  fear.”  6 

These  words  of  the  British  scholar  reveal 

9  “  The  Philosophy  of  the  Christian  Religion,”  A.  M. 
Fairbairn,  D.  D.,  pp.  365,  366. 


68  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


something  of  the  essential  difference  between 
Jesus  and  the  greatest  saints  of  history.  He 
stands  in  a  class  by  Himself.  Is  there  a  blem¬ 
ish  which  His  most  devoted  follower  would 
remove?  Or  can  that  same  follower  think  of 
some  grace  or  virtue  which,  added  to  the  figure 
of  his  Master,  would  be  a  spiritual  acquisition? 
His  uniqueness  is  an  established  fact. 

In  the  ranks  of  unbelief  there  have  been  men 
who  were  touched  with  reverence  and  sincerity. 
We  believe  that  they  were  mistaken  in  their 
conclusions,  but  they  were  honestly  mistaken. 
Apparently  they  wished  to  believe,  but  were 
intellectually  afraid  to  do  so.  These  men  were 
awed  and  moved  by  the  unique  goodness  of 
Jesus.  Of  such  men  we  may  take  W.  E. 
Lecky  and  John  Stuart  Mill  as  types.  In  his 
“  History  of  European  Morals  ”  Lecky  refers 
to  Jesus  as  “  an  ideal  character  which  through 
all  the  changes  of  eighteen  centuries  has  in¬ 
spired  the  hearts  of  men  with  an  impassioned 
love,  has  shown  itself  capable  of  acting  on  all 
ages,  nations,  temperaments  and  conditions,  has 
been  not  only  the  highest  pattern  of  virtue  but 
the  strongest  incentive  to  its  practice,  and  has 
exercised  so  deep  an  influence  that  it  may  be 
truly  said  that  the  simple  record  of  three  short 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  69 


years  of  active  life  has  done  more  to  regen¬ 
erate  and  soften  mankind  than  all  the  disquisi¬ 
tions  of  philosophers,  and  all  the  exhortation  of 
moralists.” 

Mill  spoke  as  eloquently  and  almost  as  dog¬ 
matically  upon  the  historical  reality  of  Jesus  as 
any  Christian  theologian  could  have  done. 
The  following  words  have  been  frequently 
quoted,  but  never  were  they  more  timely  than 
now.  “  It  is  of  no  use  to  say  that  Christ,  as 
exhibited  in  the  Gospels,  is  not  historical,  and 
that  we  know  not  how  much  of  what  is  ad¬ 
mirable  has  been  superadded  by  the  tradition 
of  His  followers.  Who  among  His  disciples, 
or  among  their  proselytes,  was  capable  of  in¬ 
venting  the  sayings  ascribed  to  Jesus,  or  of 
imagining  the  life  and  character  revealed  in  the 
Gospels?  .  .  .  When  this  preeminent 

genius  is  combined  with  the  qualities  of  prob¬ 
ably  the  greatest  moral  reformer  and  martyr 
to  the  mission  who  ever  existed  on  earth,  re¬ 
ligion  cannot  be  said  to  have  made  a  bad  choice 
in  pitching  upon  this  man  as  the  ideal  repre¬ 
sentative  and  guide  of  humanity;  nor  even  now 
would  it  be  easy,  even  for  an  unbeliever,  to  find 
a  better  translation  of  the  rule  of  virtue  from 
the  abstract  into  the  concrete,  than  to  endeav- 


70  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


our  so  to  live  that  Christ  would  approve  our 
life.”  7 

As  one  reads  these  words  from  the  pen  of 
the  great  English  liberal,  one  marvels  how  he 
could  believe  so  much  without  believing  vastly 
more.  Here  he  preaches,  almost  with  the 
warmth  of  an  evangelist,  the  spiritual  suprem¬ 
acy  of  Jesus.  He  accepts  a  position  far  in 
advance  of  much  modern  unbelief  in  his  ad¬ 
miration  of  Jesus.  Had  Mill  clearly  thought 
out  the  constituents  of  Christ’s  character,  and 
the  basis  of  its  supremacy,  one  feels  sure  he 
would  have  been  compelled  to  proceed  still 
further  toward  the  camp  of  Faith. 

America  has  produced  few  literary  men  of 
finer  and  more  exquisite  tastes  than  Sidney 
Lanier.  Had  his  life  been  spared  he  might 
have  become  the  Browning  of  our  nation.  In 
“  The  Crystal  ”  the  keen-visioned  poet  skill¬ 
fully  appraises  the  great  outstanding  figures  of 
thought  throughout  the  ages.  His  criticisms 
are  kindly  and  gracious,  and  therefore  all  the 
more  effective.  Shakespeare’s  “  small,  curious 
quibble  ” ;  his  “  too-silly  shifts  of  maids  that 
mask  as  men  ” ;  his  too  frequent  resort  to 
“  laboured  lewd  discourse  ” — these  and  other 
’“Essays  on  Theism,”  John  Stuart  Mill,  pp.  106,  107. 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  71 


blemishes  are  exposed.  The  “  drear  ha¬ 
rangues  ”  of  Homer;  the  “iron  stringencies” 
of  Socrates ;  the  “  comic-dreadful  ”  wars  of 
Milton;  the  goal  of  “  nothing  but  nothingness  ” 
which  was  all  that  Buddha  had  to  offer  needy 
man; — these  are  all  exquisitely  stated.  His 
briefer  allusions  to  other  religious  and  literary 
world-leaders  are  still  more  skillful.  Here  are 
some:  “Aurelius  fine,  oft  superfine”;  “mild 
saint  a  Kempis,  overmild  ” ;  “  rapt  Behmen, 
rapt  too  far  ” ;  “  high  Swedenborg,  o’er  top¬ 
pling  ” ;  “  Emerson,  most  wise,  that  yet  in  find¬ 
ing  wisdom,  lost  thyself  sometimes  ” ;  “  tense 
Keats,  with  angels’  nerves,  where  men’s  were 
better.”  There  is  not  one  of  the  world’s 
greatest  leaders  who,  in  Lanier’s  vision,  is  free 
from  defect.  Not  one  speaks  with  a  universal 
voice  addressed  to  all  lands,  all  ages,  all  classes. 
Then  comes  the  poet’s  tribute  to  the  great  ex¬ 
ception. 

But  Thee ,  hut  Thee ,  0  Sovereign  Seer  of  time, 
But  Thee,  0  poets'  Poet,  Wisdom's  Tongue, 
But  Thee,  0  man's  best  Man ,  0  love's  best  Love, 
0  perfect  life  in  perfect  labour  writ, 

O  all  men's  Comrade,  Servant,  King  or  Priest, — 
What  if  or  yet,  what  mole,  what  flaw,  what  lapse, 
What  least  defect  or  shadow  of  defect, 

What  rumour,  tattled  by  an  enemy, 

Of  inference  loose,  what  lack  of  grace 


72  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


Even  in  torture’s  grasp,  or  sleep’s,  or  death’s,- — 
Oh,  what  amiss  may  I  forgive  in  Thee, 

Jesus,  Good  Paragon,  thou  Crystal  Christ t 

The  mightiest  thinkers  have  acknowledged 
His  supremacy.  Farrar  says;  “  He  closed  all 
the  history  of  the  past,  and  inaugurated  all  the 
history  of  the  future.”  Hegel  was  convinced 
that  divinity  and  humanity  met  in  Him  as  no¬ 
where  else.  At  St.  Helena,  Napoleon  de¬ 
clared  :  “  Between  Him  and  whoever  else  in  the 
world  there  is  no  possible  form  of  comparison.” 
Fairbairn  says,  “  The  most  serious  reproach 
to  a  Christian  man  or  society  is  to  have  failed 
to  obey  the  law  of  Christ.”  8  The  great  Chris¬ 
tian  poets  reach  their  highest  notes  when  they 
hymn  His  praise.  Even  the  ribald  Voltaire 
was  impressed  by  His  moral  glory.  Rousseau 
was  compelled  to  admit  “  if  the  life  and  death 
of  Socrates  are  those  of  a  sage,  the  life  and 
death  of  Jesus  are  those  of  a  God.”  9 

In  transparent  goodness,  in  all  the  varied 
forms  of  spiritual  excellence  to  which  the 
human  mind  can  react,  in  graces  which  have 

8  “  The  Philosophy  of  the  Christian  Religion,”  A.  M. 
Fairbairn,  D.  D.,  p.  390. 

0  “  Jesus,”  F.  W.  Farrar,  D.  D.,  “  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica,”  Vol.  XIII,  p.  669. 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  73 


compelled  the  admiration  of  critics  and 
doubters  as  well  as  devoted  believers,  Jesus 
stands  alone.  He  shines  with  a  splendour  that 
is  solitary.  Every  man  who  seeks  to  be  a  bet¬ 
ter  man  and  who  tries  to  make  this  a  better 
world  will  admit  that  the  character  of  Jesus 
is  the  great  objective  of  all  his  dreams  and 
efforts.  In  such  case  Faith  can  well  afford 
to  be  indifferent  to  the  judgment  of  the  man 
who  does  not  seek  virtue  for  himself,  or  moral 
progress  for  the  world.  The  verdict  of  every 
man  who  is  mentally  and  morally  qualified  for 
a  place  on  the  jury  is  one  with  the  verdict  of 
Pilate:  “  I  find  in  Him  no  fault.”  The  most 
exacting  spiritual  judgment  must  admit  that 
the  character  of  Jesus  is  a  mosaic  from  which 
nothing  can  be  subtracted,  and  to  which  noth¬ 
ing  can  be  added,  without  the  infliction  of 
injury.  Unbelief  must  explain  how  this 
unique  character  can  be  either  the  creator  or 
the  product  of  a  great  illusion.  Could  a 
character  of  unique  and  transparent  goodness 
deliberately  formulate  an  unauthorized  re¬ 
ligion,  inducing  His  followers  to  live  in  a  world 
of  pious  pretence  and  make-believe,  doing  this 
in  the  name  of  a  Holy  God?  Or  could  such 
a  character,  embodying  the  highest  graces  that 


74  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


mortal  man  can  ever  see  or  know,  be  the  re¬ 
sultant  of  sheer  illusion  and  shadowy  dream? 
If  unbelief  is  to  claim  credit  for  logical  think¬ 
ing,  it  must  meet  and  answer  these  questions, 
and  must  do  so  in  such  a  way  as  to  carry  con¬ 
viction  to  unprejudiced  minds. 

This  sinless  life  is  associated  with  an  official 
status.  Jesus  did  not  live  His  life  in  studied 
detachment  from  the  strenuous  interests  of 
mankind.  He  entered  the  fray.  He  took  a 
foremost  place  in  the  busy  world.  He  touched 
life  at  a  thousand  points.  He  raised  His 
voice  above  the  din  and  confusion  of  His  age, 
and  the  ages  that  have  followed.  He  voiced 
judgments  that  cut  like  a  sword  into  the  in¬ 
most  thoughts,  the  subtlest  motives  and  the 
mightiest  purposes  and  passions  of  men.  In 
this  way  He  presents  a  double  exposure  to  His 
critics.  There  is  the  exposure  of  personal 
character;  there  is  the  exposure  of  official 
status.  Theoretically  at  least,  a  President  or  a 
Premier  may  be  a  model  of  saintliness  and  yet 
be  utterly  incompetent  as  a  statesman.  Not 
seldom  does  it  happen  that  a  man  of  purest 
motives  and  worthiest  intentions  proves  him¬ 
self  unwise,  if  not  dangerous,  in  leadership. 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  75 


Our  Lord’s  severest  critics  have  witnessed  to 
the  transcendant  goodness  of  His  character! 
He  stands  before  us  without  stain,  blemish  or 
defect. 

But  what  of  His  official  status  ?  Can  He  be 
trusted  as  Leader,  Teacher,  and  Master?  Is 
He  entitled  to  our  willing  and  trustful  obedi¬ 
ence? 

It  is  impossible  to  read  the  Gospels  without 
being  impressed  by  the  tone  of  spiritual  author¬ 
ity  with  which  Jesus  spoke.  His  pronounce¬ 
ments  upon  life  and  conduct  were  never  uttered 
with  faltering  accents.  He  never  indulged 
the  note  of  apology.  He  did  not  argue  or  de¬ 
bate  with  men:  He  commanded  them.  He 
always  assumed  the  function  of  Master  in  deal¬ 
ing  with  the  things  of  the  spirit.  True,  He 
declared,  “  I  am  among  you  as  one  that 
serveth,”  but  that  attitude  of  service  was,  in 
itself,  the  announcement  of  a  sublime  ideal  of 
life,  an  ideal  almost  incredible  to  the  Pagan 
world  of  His  day,  an  ideal  also  which  Chris¬ 
tendom  itself  has  not  yet  fully  grasped.  When 
the  term  “  Master  ”  or  “  Teacher  ”  was  ad¬ 
dressed  to  Him,  He  always  accepted  it  as 
though  by  right.  The  claims  which  He  as¬ 
serted  placed  Him  in  the  forefront  of  every 


76  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


religious  problem  and  conflict.  The  value  of 
the  credential  which  Faith  presents  in  the  per¬ 
son  of  Jesus  will  be  largely  enhanced  if,  in  ad¬ 
dition  to  His  sinless  life,  it  can  assert  His 
supremacy  as  Teacher  and  Leader. 

No  student  of  the  Gospels  can  ever  regard 
Jesus  as  a  mere  echo.  Even  if  some  resem¬ 
blance  can  be  found  between  a  few  of  His  say¬ 
ings  and  those  of  other  world-teachers,  it  is 
impossible  to  infer  that  He  consciously  bor¬ 
rowed  from  them.  Who  would  dare  to  assert 
that  He  ever  had  recourse  to  the  teachings  of 
Confucius  or  Buddha  or  Zoroaster?  It  is 
almost  positively  certain  that  He  did  not.  He 
had  no  modern  library  embodying  world- 
literature  which  He  could  consult.  The  Jews 
were  among  the  most  exclusive  of  all  races,  and 
had  no  place  in  their  culture  for  the  views 
of  far-distant  leaders  of  thought.  A  touch  of 
imagination  will  enable  us  to  portray  the 
mean,  restricted,  narrow,  petty  life  of  Naz¬ 
areth!  It  was  a  little  straggling  hamlet  of 
Galilee,  entirely  untouched  by  ministries  akin 
to  those  of  modern  culture.  Jesus  showed  the 
most  perfect  knowledge  of  the  Hebrew  Scrip¬ 
tures  and  ordinances,  and  He  claimed  to  be  the 
goal  to  which  they  all  converged ;  in  vain,  how- 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  77 


ever,  do  we  look  for  a  single  instance  in  which 
His  utterances  are  coloured  by  Greek,  Persian, 
or  Babylonian  thought.  We  cannot  read  the 
Gospel  story  without  the  conviction  that  the 
teachings  of  Jesus  were  the  outstr earnings  of 
His  own  deepest  being.  He  shines  by  no 
borrowed  light.  No  great  figure  of  history 
owed  less  to  ancestors  and  contemporaries,  if 
we  except  the  influence  of  His  mother  upon 
Him.  From  the  first  day  of  His  public  min¬ 
istry  to  the  last  He  never  relinquished  His 
place  as  Supreme  Commander  in  the  realm  of 
religious  experience.  “We  cannot  but  be 
amazed  that  the  church  has  not  collected  His 
commandments  and  set  them  in  a  position  of 
eminence  over  her  altars.”  “  Yet  over  the 
altars  of  the  church  it  is  usually  the  Decalogue 
of  Moses  that  is  inscribed  in  letters  of  gold.”  10 
The  position  of  spiritual  primacy  asserted  by 
Jesus  is  seen  in  His  treatment  of  the  most 
authoritative  religious  teachers  and  institutions 
of  His  day.  He  claimed  the  right  to  pass 
judgment  on  the  teachings  of  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures,  and  to  proclaim  His  own  authority 
beyond  anything  inhering  in  the  greatest  men 

10 “The  Commandments  of  Jesus,”  R.  F.  Horton, 
D.  D.,  p.  3- 


78  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


of  the  Hebrew  State  and  Church.  “  Ye  have 
heard  that  it  was  said  by  them  of  old  time 
.  .  .  but  I  say  unto  you.” 11  This  at¬ 

titude  of  final  spiritual  authority  is  taken  again 
and  again.  In  each  of  these  instances  the 
higher  form  of  spiritual  conduct  is  unfolded; 
in  each  case  it  is  obvious  that  men  are  called  by 
Him  to  a  worthier  and  more  wondrous  experi¬ 
ence;  in  each  case  it  is  clear  that  manifold 
forms  of  mischief  which  are  possible  under 
the  rulings  of  those  “  of  old  time  ”  are  utterly 
impossible  under  the  higher  principle  which  He 
enunciates.  This  may  be  seen  in  the  study 
of  a  single  instance.  Traditional  Hebrew  law, 
when  dealing  with  the  problem  of  enmity, 
stipulated  “  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour,  and 
hate  thine  enemy.”  In  other  words, — “  you 
must  love  those  who  are  good  to  you,  but  you 
are  under  no  obligation  to  love  those  who  have 
injured  you.”  One  cannot  measure  the 
amount  of  tragedy  and  moral  evil  that  can  be 
produced  in  our  world  while  still  keeping 
technically  within  the  limits  of  this  law.  But 
when  Jesus  says,  “  But  I  say  unto  you,  Love 
your  enemies  .  .  .  that  ye  may  be  the 

children  of  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven,” 
11  Matthew  5:21;  27 :  33,  38,  43. 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  79 


it  is  clear  that  we  have  a  rule  of  conduct  from 
which  all  forms  of  revenge  are  excluded.  Had 
nominal  Christendom  taken  this  teaching 
seriously,  there  would  have  been  no  world-war. 
It  is  utterly  impossible  for  the  human  mind  to 
conceive  a  Diviner  law  for  life  than  universal 
love  and  service. 

The  typical  Jew  was  exceedingly  sensitive 
to  anything  reflecting  upon  the  outstanding 
figures  of  his  nation.  Yet  Jesus  compared 
Himself  with  the  leading  characters  of  Hebrew 
history,  to  their  disadvantage.  “  A  greater 
than  Solomon  is  here,”  “  a  greater  than  Jonah 
is  here.”  He  revised  the  laws  dealing  with  the 
Sabbath,  and  with  marriage,  and  intimated 
that  the  greatest  spiritual  value  of  the  Old 
Testament  lay  in  the  fact  that  all  its  lines  of 
teaching,  ritual  and  prophecy  led  up  to  Him¬ 
self. 

It  is  doubtful  if  any  historic  person  asserted 
himself  more  frequently  than  did  Jesus.  The 
terms  which  He  used  were  the  most  august  and 
impressive  within  the  compass  of  human 
language.  In  the  midst  of  a  darkened  race, 
when  so  much  was  confused,  He  declared,  “  I 
am  the  Light  of  the  World.”  In  the  midst  of 
a  world  blighted  by  so  much  hardness  and 


80  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


cruelty,  and  governed  by  a  political  machine 
as  unpitying  as  Rome,  He  declared,  “  I  am  the 
good  Shepherd;  the  good  shepherd  giveth  his 
life  for  the  sheep.”  Facing  the  ravages  of 
death,  and  looking  upon  a  world  ripped  and 
scarred  by  graves  He  declared,  “  I  am  the  Res¬ 
urrection,  and  the  Life;  he  that  believeth  in  me, 
though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall  he  live.”  When 
men  sought  truth  from  Him  He  declared,  “  I 
am  the  Truth.”  When  puzzled  and  baffled 
minds  appealed  to  Him  to  show  them  the  way 
to  life  eternal  He  replied,  “  I  am  the  Way 
.  .  .  and  the  Life.”  He  identified  virtue, 

goodness  and  purity  with  Himself.  Surely  no 
such  line  of  teaching  has  ever  been  adopted 
since  the  first  day  that  one  man  tried  to  help 
another. 

Even  a  casual  reader  of  the  Gospels  must 
be  impressed  by  the  unhesitating  way  in  which 
Jesus  imposes  His  terms  of  discipleship.  It  is 
true  that  the  blessings  which  He  imparts  are 
in  the  nature  of  free  gifts.  He  is  the  author 
of  the  doctrines  of  grace.  But  salvation  is 
never  cheapened  in  His  teachings.  No  great 
leader  ever  demanded  greater  sacrifices  from 
His  followers.  He  dared  to  project  His  claims 
between  the  sacred  bonds  that  bind  parent  to 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  81 


child,  husband  to  wife,  brother  to  sister.  He 
not  only  demanded  from  His  followers  a  love 
greater  than  the  love  of  life  itself,  but  a  love 
greater  than  that  consecrated  to  the  nearest 
and  dearest  ones,  and  this  devotion  was  claimed 
not  so  much  for  a  cause  as  for  Himself.  His 
appeal  is  “  for  my  sake.”  He  does  not  ask 
men  to  be  willing  to  suffer  torture  and  death 
for  a  theory,  or  a  dogma,  or  even  an  enterprise, 
but  “  for  my  sake.”  And  history  tells  few 
more  wonderful  stories  than  the  one  which  de¬ 
scribes  how  men  accepted  this  appeal.  They 
answered  Him  in  terms  of  such  fullness  of  sur¬ 
render  as  the  world  had  never  seen. 

Why  were  the  early  Christians  so  furiously 
persecuted  for  nearly  two  and  a  half  centuries? 
What  was  the  charge  levelled  against  them? 
What  was  the  test  question  addressed  to  them  ? 
It  is  doubtful  if  any  Christian  believer  was 
ever  questioned  regarding  his  belief  in  the 
existence  of  God,  or  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  or  the  forgiveness  of  sins!  The  test 
question  put  to  the  aged  Polycarp,  the  Bishop 
of  Smyrna,  fairly  represents  the  whole  of  the 
persecutions  urged  against  the  Christian  move¬ 
ment.  A  demand  was  made  upon  him  to  curse 
the  name  and  person  of  Christ.  His  reply  has 


82  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


become  a  classic:  “  Eighty  and  six  years  have 
I  served  Him,  and  He  has  done  me  nothing  but 
good,  how  then  can  I  curse  Him,  my  Lord  and 
my  Saviour  ?  ”  “  Men  were  lit  as  torches  in 

Nero’s  garden,  and  women  flung  to  the  wild 
beasts  of  the  amphitheatre ;  and  for  what?  For 
a  system,  for  a  cause,  for  a  church  ?  They  had 
not  enough  knowledge  of  theory  to  pass  a  Sun¬ 
day-school  examination;  they  had  no  doctrine 
of  the  Holy  Trinity,  nor  of  the  Person  of 
Jesus,  nor  of  His  sacrifice,  nor  of  Grace.  They 
died,  in  their  simplicity,  for  Him  ‘  whom  hav¬ 
ing  not  seen  ye  love/  and  the  name  of  the 
Crucified  was  the  last  word  that  trembled  on 
their  dying  lips.”  12  Critical  scholarship  might 
suggest  that  the  early  Christian  martyrs  were 
not  quite  so  devoid  of  the  elements  of  theology, 
but  as  a  general  statement  of  the  charge  on 
which  they  were  persecuted,  and  the  principle 
of  personal  devotion  to  their  Lord  by  which 
they  were  animated  and  sustained,  the  lines  of 
Dr.  Watson  express  the  simple  historic  fact. 
The  various  charges  of  impiety,  disloyalty  and 
disobedience  preferred  against  the  early  Chris¬ 
tians  were  only  the  indirect  forms  of  the  one 

12  “  The  Mind  of  the  Master,”  John  Watson,  D.  D. 
(Ian  McLaren),  pp.  192-193. 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  83 


principal  charge— their  devotion  to,  and  wor¬ 
ship  of,  Christ. 

Other  great  figures  in  history  have  com¬ 
manded  a  loyal  and  enthusiastic  following,  but 
in  such  instances  materialism  has  been  a  great 
factor.  Wealth,  estates,  the  lure  of  court  life, 
political  office  and  preferment,  and  the  glamour 
of  military  enterprise  have  all  played  their  part 
in  fostering  the  power  of  personal  leadership. 
In  this  respect  Jesus  had  nothing.  He  “  had 
not  where  to  lay  His  head.”  As  far  as  we 
know  He  had  no  material  thing  on  the  day  of 
His  death  except  His  raiment,  and  for  that  His 
executioners  gambled.  No  world-ruler  or 
dignitary  stood  ready  to  render  assistance  or 
encouragement  either  to  Him  or  His  disciples. 
The  triumph  of  Jesus  over  the  hearts  and 
minds  of  men  was,  in  the  most  absolute  sense, 
a  spiritual  triumph.  Where  does  history  fur¬ 
nish  a  parallel?  Can  any  honest  seeker  for 
truth  question  the  right  of  Faith  to  present 
these  phases  of  the  Person  of  Christ  as  a 
mighty  guarantee  of  the  truth  of  the  Christian 
religion  ? 

It  is  obvious  that  no  consistent  appraisal  of 
the  Person  of  Jesus  can  close  at  this  stage. 


84  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


Many  of  His  claims  and  achievements  would 
remain  untouched.  As  we  look  at  these, 
pondering  their  meaning  and  patiently  tracing 
their  significance,  we  are  haunted  by  one  ques¬ 
tion  from  which  there  is  no  escape.  The  sub¬ 
stance  of  that  question  is  this: — What  lay  in 
the  deepest  depths  of  Christ's  consciousness? 
Or  the  question  may  take  this  form: — In  the 
last  analysis,  what  was  that  consciousness?  I 
believe  there  is  only  one  satisfactory  answer. 

Jesus  Had  a  God-Consciousness 

This  is  a  statement  that  should  be  made  only 
by  one  whose  every  mental  and  spiritual  faculty 
is  convinced  of  its  truth.  It  is  doubtful  if  any 
affirmation  concerning  Jesus  can  go  beyond  it; 
it  is  certain  to  my  mind  that  many  of  the  facts 
of  His  inner  and  outer  life  can  never  be  inter¬ 
preted  except  upon  the  whole-hearted  accept¬ 
ance  of  this  statement.  Belief  in  the  God-con¬ 
sciousness  of  Jesus  rests  upon  something  vastly 
more  than  the  historic  fact  that  He  claimed 
the  Messiah’s  office  and  function.  The  study  of 
Hebrew  Messianic  hopes  and  dreams  is  not  an 
easy  one.  A  variety  of  ideas,  some  of  them 
arbitrary  and  fanciful,  gathered  around  the 
main  conception.  A  parallel  may  be  found  in 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  85 


Christian  circles  concerning  the  doctrine  of  the 
Second  Coming  of  Christ.  From  the  first  era 
of  the  Christian  Church  onward  there  has  been 
a  place  for  this  belief  in  the  creeds  and  con¬ 
fessions,  In  stately  dignity  and  fitting  reserve 
it  is  found  in  the  Apostles'  Creed :  “  He 
ascended  into  Heaven  .  .  .  from  whence 

He  shall  come  to  judge  the  quick  and  the 
dead."  It  is  found  in  similar  terms  in  the 
Te  Deum  of  St.  Ambrose  of  Milan:  “  We  be¬ 
lieve  that  Thou  shalt  come,  to  be  our  Judge." 
On  the  other  hand  it  is  found  in  the  ranks  of 
spiritual  fanaticism  in  a  variety  of  grotesque 
and  extravagant  forms,  involving  violent 
Scriptural  exegesis,  inflicting  serious  maltreat¬ 
ment  of  spiritual  taste,  and  embodying  a  spirit 
of  intolerance  not  easy  to  forgive. 

It  was  so  with  the  Hebrew  belief  in  a  coming 
Messiah.  Believing  themselves  to  be  the  chosen 
people  of  Jehovah,  elected  by  Him  with  some 
unique  spiritual  vocation  in  view,  the  Jews 
looked  to  the  coming  of  the  anointed  one  as 
God’s  guarantee  of  their  peculiar  destiny.  It 
was  as  though  they  said,  “If  Jehovah  has 
chosen  us  to  be  His  special  people,  for  a  spe¬ 
cial  purpose,  how  can  we  realize  that  end  with¬ 
out  a  Messiah?  We  are  surrounded  by  enemies. 


86  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


We  have  disloyalties  and  desertions  even 
among  our  own  ranks.  In  some  wonderful 
way  Jehovah  must  come  to  us  in  a  Person, — an 
anointed  one!  He  must  help  us  to  fulfill  our 
election.  Then  the  world  will  wonder,  and 
believe.  He  shall  have  dominion  also  from 
sea  to  sea,  and  from  the  river  unto  the  ends  of 
the  earth.  They  that  dwell  in  the  wilderness 
shall  bow  before  Him;  and  His  enemies  shall 
lick  the  dust.  .  .  .  Yea,  all  Kings  shall 

fall  down  before  Him;  all  nations  shall  serve 
Him.”  Undoubtedly  the  national  expectation 
of  a  Messiah  grew  out  of  the  nation’s  belief  in 
its  own  Divine  election.  I  do  not  suggest  that 
the  idea  of  Messiahship  necessarily  involved 
the  idea  of  Incarnation,  yet  it  was  expected  that 
the  Messiah  would  be  an  exceptional  person¬ 
ality,  possibly  God-anointed  and  God-inspired 
rather  than  God-incarnate.  Jesus  met  this 
national  expectation.  He  could  not  evade  it. 
The  moment  He  asserted  any  exceptional  claim 
He  would  inevitably  touch  the  nation’s  Mes¬ 
sianic  hope  through  the  association  of  ideas. 
If  frankly  and  openly  challenged  as  to  whether 
He  felt  Himself  to  be  the  Messiah,  how  could 
He  answer?  Sometimes  we  are  asked  ques¬ 
tions  which  cannot  be  answered  with  a  plain 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  87 


Yes  or  No.  “Art  Thou  the  Messiah  ?”  In 
simply  answering  “  Yes  ”  Jesus  would  have 
run  the  risk  of  claiming  to  fulfill  the  extrava¬ 
gant,  if  not  fantastic  expectations  that  gathered 
around  the  Messianic  idea.  If  the  propaganda 
and  procedure  of  later  pretenders  to  Messiah- 
ship  are  a  fair  reflection  of  popular  taste,  we 
can  see  how  Jesus  would  have  been  embarrassed 
by  such  a  situation.  As  Dr.  Stanton  writes, 
“  The  mass  of  men  thought  chiefly  of  victory 
over  their  enemies  and  the  bringing  in  of  great 
material  prosperity,  while  the  truly  pious  dwelt 
on  the  remission  of  sins”  (Luke  1:  77). 13 

Could  Jesus  have  answered  “  No  ”  ?  Such 
an  answer  was  unthinkable  to  Him  with  His 
sense  of  a  Divine  vocation.  May  not  this  ex¬ 
plain  the  peculiar  answer  He  gave  to  the 
Baptist's  appeal?  John  was  not  only  impa¬ 
tient;  he  was  mistrustful.  The  apparent  in¬ 
action  of  Jesus  was  very  strange  to  the  hero 
who  lay  languishing  in  prison!  Hence  the 
sharp  and  abrupt  challenge :  “  Art  thou  he  that 
should  come,  or  .  .  .”  Apparently  John 

had  his  misgivings.  The  question  seemed  to 
call  for  a  simple  Yes  or  No.  Jesus  pointed  to 

18  Hastings  Bible  Dictionary,  Vob  3,  p.  355,  “  Messiah,” 
Dr.  Vincent  H.  Stanton. 


88  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


the  records  of  His  own  ministry:  benevolence, 
compassion,  and  the  proclamation  of  the  re¬ 
deeming  love  and  mercy  of  God.  He  said  in 
effect,  “  Let  these  facts  furnish  the  answer.” 
He  did  claim  to  be  the  Messiah,  but  not  the 
Messiah  that  answered  to  all  the  worldly  and 
sordid  expectations  that  gathered  around  the  es¬ 
sential  idea.  Jesus  did  claim  to  be  God’s  great¬ 
est  and  best  gift  to  the  Hebrew  nation.  This 
truth  is  clearly  worked  out  by  Robertson  Smith 
in  his  article  on  “  Messiah.”  “  When  we  look 
at  the  heartfelt  longing  for  a  leader  in  the  way 
of  righteousness  and  acceptance  with  God 
which  underlies  the  aspiration  after  political 
deliverance,  we  see  that  it  was  in  no  mere  spirit 
of  accommodation  to  prevailing  language  that 
Jesus  did  not  disdain  the  name  in  which  all  the 
hopes  of  the  Old  Testament  were  gathered 
up.”  14  In  other  words,  Jesus  definitely  claimed, 
as  before  the  High  Priest,  to  be  God’s  Messiah 
in  the  truest  and  most  spiritual  meaning  of  that 
term.  “  In  Jesus  this  (Messianic)  hope  was 
fulfilled,  and  this  line  of  prediction  and  expec¬ 
tation  found  its  end.  Jews  in  our  own  day 
have  borne  witness  that  if  He  was  not  the  true 

14  “  Encyclopaedia  Britannica”  (Peale  reprint),  Vol. 
16,  p.  56. 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  89 


Messiah,  God  never  afterward  sent  a  prophet 
to  reprove  men  for  believing  in  Him.”  15 

The  God-Consciousness  of  Jesus  Included 
Factors  Higher  and  Greater  than 
any  Messianic  Vocation 

He  claimed  the  right  to  forgive  sins.  Over 
and  over  again  He  asserted  this  right.  The 
evidence  of  the  Gospels  indicates  that  Christ’s 
attitude  toward  all  truly  penitent  souls  was 
embodied  in  the  words,  “  Thy  sins  are  for¬ 
given.”  16  This  expression  was  a  formula  of 
absolution,  pronounced  upon  His  own  initia¬ 
tive  and  on  His  own  responsibility,  as  though 
the  sins  which  were  cancelled  had  been  com¬ 
mitted  against  Himself.  There  was  a  kind  of 
logical  consistency  about  the  retort  of  His 
critics — “  Who  can  forgive  sins  but  God 
only?”17  Sin  is  more  than  mistake,  or  ar¬ 
rested  development,  or  accidental  failure.  Sin 
is  rebellion  against  God.  We  commit  injuries 
against  each  other,  but  sin  as  such  would  be 
impossible  in  a  purely  mechanical  and  ma- 

15 “Outline  of  Christian  Theology,”  Wm.  N.  Clark, 
D.  D.,  p.  160. 

10  Mark  2 :  5. 


"Mark  2:7. 


90  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


terial  universe.  Every  intelligent  Jew  was 
familiar  with  the  Psalmist’s  view  of  moral 
evil:  “Against  thee,  thee  only  have  I  sinned, 
and  done  this  evil  in  thy  sight.”  He  would  be 
just  as  familiar  with  the  same  sinner’s  plea  for 
pardon,  “  Have  mercy  upon  me,  O  God.”  In 
all  Old  Testament  literature  there  is  not  the 
slightest  trace  of  any  priest,  prophet,  or  re¬ 
ligious  teacher  daring  to  arrogate  to  himself 
the  prerogative  of  forgiveness.  Jesus  did  so. 

“By  coming  forward  as  incarnate  pardon  He 
proclaimed  His  ability  to  lead  the  sinful,  there 
and  then,  into  the  Father’s  presence.  His 
mercy,  as  they  saw  it,  was  a  sure  guarantee  of 
God’s  mercy.  But  when  we  think  it  out, 
clearly  forgiveness  is  a  Divine  miracle,  some¬ 
thing  which  in  its  infinite  marvel  is  inexpli¬ 
cable  by  the  resources  of  nature  or  humanity; 
it  presupposes  the  very  grace  and  might  of  the 
Eternal.  By  the  claim  to  impart  peace  of  con¬ 
science,  Jesus  laid  His  hand,  with  quiet  assur¬ 
ance,  on  a  unique  prerogative,  and  by  its  ex¬ 
ercise  He  opened  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  to 
believers.”  18 

Jesus  professed  an  exceptional  relation  to 

18  “  The  Doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Jesus  Christ,”  H. 
R.  Macintosh,  D.  D.,  p.  32. 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  91 


God.  This  is  seen  in  His  assertion  of  a  unique 
knowledge  of  God.  “  No  man  knoweth  the 
Son  but  the  Father,  neither  knoweth  any  man 
the  Father,  save  the  Son.”  There  is  simply 
no  escape  from  the  tremendous  implication  of 
these  words.  Their  meaning  is  clear.  What¬ 
ever  knowledge  of  God  might  have  been  pos¬ 
sessed  by  prophets,  psalmists  and  saints  was 
revealed  knowledge,  while  His  knowledge  was 
direct  and  unmediated.  He  is  Himself  the 
revealer.  In  His  own  consciousness  therefore, 
Jesus  stands  in  a  separate  category  of  spiritual 
being.  In  interpreting  this  verse  Bishop 
Ellicott  writes:  “  No  one  knew  the  Son  as  such 
in  all  the  ineffable  mystery  of  His  being  and 
His  work  but  the  Father:  no  one  fully  entered 
into  the  Fatherhood  of  God  but  He  whose 
relation  to  Him  had  been  from  eternity  one  of 
sonship.”  In  quoting  these  words  I  am  not 
intentionally  trying  to  beg  the  question  at 
issue ;  rather  am  I  presenting  an  interpretation 
of  the  assertion  of  Jesus  which  seems  to  be  the 
only  one  possible.  It  is  useless  for  unbelief  to 
question  the  authenticity  of  this  particular 
claim ;  similar  claims  are  made  in  other  places, 
and  the  whole  of  our  Lord’s  public  ministry  is 
based  upon  the  principle  of  God-consciousness 


92  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


of  which  Matthew  11:  27  is  but  a  vivid  in¬ 
stance. 

The  same  truth  is  seen  in  some  of  the  titles 
which  He  assumed.  The  term  “  Son  of  man  ” 
is  undoubtedly  associated  with  the  Messianic 
status,  but  the  more  arresting  term  “  Son  of 
God  ”  has  a  far  wider  import.  It  is  admitted 
that  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels  Jesus  does  not 
definitely  appropriate  this  title,  but  He  fre¬ 
quently  calls  God  His  Father.  The  difference 
is  one  of  form  rather  than  fact.  In  the  Fourth 
Gospel  He  assumes  the  title  with  frequency. 
The  Sonship  of  Jesus  differed  essentially  from 
the  filial  relation  to  God  which  we  are  all  sum¬ 
moned  to  honour.  The  term  is  always  safe¬ 
guarded  from  common  usage  and  is  employed 
in  an  exclusive  sense.  We  are  called  to  be 
sons ;  He  was  The  Son.  “  Candid  Unitarians 
have  admitted  that  it  is  a  striking  fact  that 
while  Jesus  often  speaks  of  God  as  the  Father, 
My  Father,  Your  Father,  He  never  associates 
Himself  even  with  His  disciples  to  say  Our 
Father/’ 19  This  is  vastly  more  than  a  quibble. 
It  marks  a  solemn  reservation  of  title  on  the 
part  of  our  Lord.  That  reservation  was  really 
the  assertion  of  a  unique  and  unshared  relation 
19  “Studies  in  Theology/’  Jas.  Denney,  D.  D.,  p.  33. 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  93 


with  the  Father.  It  means  that  He  is  to  God 
what  no  mortal  man,  no  matter  how  sincere 
and  saintly,  can  ever  be. 

Closely  associated  with  this  title  is  His  claim 
to  preexistence.  Here  we  approach  one  of 
the  most  difficult  of  all  the  problems  presented 
in  the  Person  of  our  Lord.  It  were  sheer 
folly  to  ignore  these  difficulties,  or  lightly  to 
brush  them  aside.  But  our  immediate  task  is 
not  to  explain  the  how ,  but  to  ascertain  the 
what .  Is  preexistence  predicated  of  Jesus,  not 
only  in  the  Epistles,  but  in  the  Gospels  ?  The 
question  admits  of  but  one  answer.  From 
end  to  end  of  the  Gospel  narratives  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  Jesus  in  this  world  is  regarded  as  the 
expression  of  a  purpose  of  grace.  He  “  came.” 
He  “  was  sent.”  He  was  “  from  above.”  He 
“  descended  out  of  Heaven.”  In  this  sweep¬ 
ing  statement  “  before  Abraham  was,  I  am,” 
His  timeless  being  is  asserted  in  the  most 
dramatic  form. 

His  claims  to  unique  sonship  and  preexist¬ 
ence  go  together.  They  seem  to  be  inseparable. 
They  lift  our  thought  into  the  Infinite  spaces 
and  the  Eternal  realities.  There  cannot  be  an 
Eternal  Father  apart  from  an  Eternal  Son. 
Apparently  the  very  nature  of  God  is  social 


94  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


rather  than  solitary.  May  this  not  represent 
an  Eternal  necessity  ?  Could  God  be  conscious 
of  Himself  as  an  unrelieved  unit  of  Eternal 
spiritual  Being?  Let  imagination  wing  its 
way  to  those  immeasurable  distances  ante¬ 
dating  worlds,  systems,  angels,  archangels  and 
seraphim  when  God  alone  was.  Could  the 
Infinite  Being  be  conscious  of  Himself  if  God¬ 
head  were  absolutely  solitary?  Just  as  we 
could  never  be  conscious  of  colour  if  every¬ 
thing  were  of  one  colour  only,  so  the  Father 
eternally  knows  Himself  to  be  Father  because 
eternally  He  knows  another  to  be  Son.  Eternal 
Fatherhood  and  Eternal  Sonship  are  correla¬ 
tives  of  thought  itself. 

And  because  of  this  principle  of  God-con¬ 
sciousness  in  Jesus  we  are  prepared  to  accept 
His  claim  to  be  the  Final  Judge  of  men. 
Granting  His  previous  claims  this  one  is  in¬ 
evitable.  Judgment  is  integral  in  any  moral 
system  of  things.  Law  without  sanctions 
ceases  to  be  Law.  And  sanctions  cease  to  be 
sanctions  when  not  justly  and  adequately  en¬ 
forced.  When  sanctions  are  unjustly  admin¬ 
istered  we  have  tyranny;  when  inadequately 
enforced,  we  have  chaos.  The  all-holy  person 
of  Jesus  safeguards  the  moral  government  of 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  FOUNDER  95 


the  world  from  both  of  these  extremes.  Surely 
no  other  historic  character  ever  dreamed  of 
asserting  this  claim  of  universal  judgeship. 
For  any  one  else  to  climb  to  the  throne  of  uni¬ 
versal  judgeship,  there  to  pronounce  the  final 
sentence  upon  all  men,  would  appear  so  gro¬ 
tesque  that  the  laughter  of  the  whole  world 
would  be  almost  certain.  Think  of  the  perfect 
knowledge  of  all  the  motives,  the  desires,  the 
conditions  of  every  soul  which  such  a  Judge 
must  possess.  Yet,  when  Jesus  in  His  para¬ 
bles  of  Judgment  quietly  asserts:  “  When  the 
Son  of  man  shall  come  .  .  .  and  before 

him  shall  be  gathered  all  nations,”  we  are  con¬ 
scious  of  no  violation  of  the  fitness  of  things; 
not  a  single  spiritual  instinct  resents  the  pic¬ 
ture;  inwardly  we  feel  that  if  men  are  to  be 
judged,  He  alone  is  competent  to  preside  at 
the  tribunal ;  and  reverently,  with  bowed  heads 
and  solemn  submission  we  say,  “  Even  so, 
come,  Lord  Jesus.” 

A  God-consciousness!  It  will  be  found  that 
the  most  consistent  and  rational  course  to  take 
with  Jesus  is  to  accept  Him  upon  His  own 
estimate  of  Himself. 

Was  He  not  worthy  to  be  God's  Son?  If 
a  self-disclosure  of  God,  in  personal  form,  is 


96  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


in  itself  possible,  why  should  the  most  cautious 
thinker  hesitate  to  accept  Jesus  as  such?  Can 
we  portray  any  character  intelligible  to  human 
thought,  and  approachable  by  human  need, 
more  worthy  to  be  called  God’s  Son?  Across 
unmeasured  distances  the  apostle  on  Patmos 
hears  the  ascription  of  adoration  to  the  Lamb 
upon  the  Throne,  “  Thou  art  worthy.”  In 
presenting  Jesus  as  the  greatest  Credential  of 
Faith,  the  Christian  religion  stakes  everything 
upon  the  affirmation  “  Thou  art  worthy,  O 
Lord.” 

If  unbelief  admits  the  possibility  of  an  In¬ 
carnation,  but  is  unwilling  to  accept  Jesus  as 
the  Incarnate  One,  it  must,  to  be  consistent, 
point  out  in  what  respect  Jesus  was  unworthy, 
and  it  must  place  before  our  vision  the  portrait 
of  one  more  gracious,  more  winsome,  more 
compelling, — one  before  whom  even  Jesus 
Himself  must  be  commanded  to  bow!  That 
is  the  task  of  unbelief. 


IV 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT  IN 
CHRISTIAN  ORIGINS 


THE  word  Divine  is  used  in  this  con¬ 
nection  with  some  hesitation.  Was 
Tennyson  on  firm  ground  when  he 
wrote  in  the  later  “  Locksley  Hall”:  “For¬ 
ward,  till  you  see  the  highest  Human  Nature 
is  divine  ”  ?  When  human  nature  reaches  its 
highest  unfoldings,  what  is  its  relation  to  Di¬ 
vine  nature?  Doubtless  there  is  a  kinship  be¬ 
tween  the  two.  The  qualities  of  goodness, 
compassion,  and  truth  are  one,  whether  found 
in  God  or  man.  In  Him  they  exist  in  higher 
form.  In  Him  they  are  embodied  in  infinite 
perfection.  The  difference  between  goodness 
in  man  and  goodness  in  God  is  not  in  kind  but 
in  degree.  Something  of  this  truth  of  kinship 
as  it  subsists  between  God  and  man  is  involved 
in  the  teaching  of  Divine  Fatherhood  and  hu¬ 
man  sonship.  We  could  never  enter  into  such 
sonship  if  our  nature  were  essentially  alien 
from  the  nature  of  God. 

97 


98  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


But  granting  the  existence  of  this  kinship 
between  the  two  natures,  it  were  folly  to  ignore 
the  still  more  obvious  truth  that  man  is  not 
God,  and  God  is  not  man.  There  are  certain 
things  which  seem  to  be  part  of  ourselves 
which  we  can  never  predicate  of  God.  The 
child  in  its  cradle  has  a  nature  akin  to  the 
strong  man  who  fulfills  the  functions  of  fa¬ 
therhood,  but  there  are  certain  things  which 
the  father  can  do,  and  which  the  child  cannot 
do.  It  were  foolish  affectation  to  balk  at  the 
distinction  which  exists  in  practical  matters 
between  parent  and  child. 

When  we  speak  of  the  Divine  elements  em¬ 
bodied  in  Christian  origins,  we  refer  to  those 
phases  of  Christian  experience  and  to  those 
developments  of  the  early  Church  which,  we 
firmly  believe,  can  never  be  accounted  for  by 
man’s  unaided  thought  or  effort.  Faith  has 
the  right  to  demand  from  unbelief  one  condi¬ 
tion,  viz.,  an  open  mind.  If  men  come  to  the 
field  of  Christian  origins  with  their  minds 
hermetically  sealed  against  all  facts  which  can¬ 
not  be  cribbed,  cabined  and  confined  within  the 
categories  of  the  usual,  then  all  the  honest  ef¬ 
forts  of  Faith  to  prove  its  case  will  be  useless. 
Violent  prejudice  against  the  supernatural 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


99 


must  be  calmly  laid  aside.  Who  knows  the 
limits  of  the  natural?  As  Dr.  Romanes  well 
asks,  “  Is  there  never  to  be  room  in  this  world 
for  the  unusual  or  the  exceptional  ?  ” 

First  in  order  let  us  glance  at  this  Christian 
Credential  as  it  stands  related  to  the  alleged 

Resurrection  of  Jesus 

The  Christian  documents  and  the  Christian 
tradition  declare  that  Jesus  arose  from  the 
dead  in  less  than  forty-eight  hours  after  His 
crucifixion.  The  claim  is  asserted  in  the  firm¬ 
est  and  most  unfaltering  terms.  It  is  not  easy 
to  say  which  of  the  evangelists  tells  the  story 
in  the  most  convincing  way.  The  narrative  is 
present,  either  in  actual  statement  or  by  im¬ 
plication,  on  nearly  every  page  of  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles  and  the  Epistles.  The  Apocalypse 
glows  and  burns  with  the  glory  of  the  One 
who  declared,  “  I  am  he  that  liveth,  and  was 
dead;  and  behold,  I  am  alive  for  evermore.” 

It  is  obvious  that  if  this  narrative  be  ac¬ 
cepted,  the  claims  of  Faith  are  conceded.  In 
such  an  event  unbelief  would  have  nothing 
further  to  say.  The  case  would  be  closed.  No 
effort  is  needed  to  show  that  the  Resurrection 
of  Jesus  would  validate  all  His  claims,  and 


100  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


would  place  His  spiritual  authority  beyond 
doubt  or  question.  Had  Jesus  been  a  deceiver, 
or  a  self-deceived  enthusiast,  there  could  have 
been  no  resurrection.  Such  a  character  could 
never  have  raised  Himself,  and  the  idea  of 
God  working  a  miracle  to  raise  Him  would  lie 
far  beyond  the  range  of  serious  thought.  The 
type  of  unbelief  with  which  Faith  contends  in 
these  days  is  the  type  which  assumes,  and  fre¬ 
quently  with  rather  violent  dogmatism,  that 
outside  the  realm  of  matter  we  have  no  shadow 
of  evidence  that  reality  is  to  be  found.  If 
Jesus  was  raised  from  the  dead  the  whole  sys¬ 
tem  of  modern  materialism  is  discredited,  if 
not  shattered. 

Now  one  thing  is  certain,  and  is  probably 
admitted  by  all  thinkers  except  those  who  deny 
the  historic  life  of  Jesus,  namely,  the  tremen¬ 
dous  part  played  in  early  Christian  history  by 
the  belief  in  the  Resurrection.  Few  German 
thinkers  took  more  violent  liberties  with  the 
Christian  documents  than  did  Ferdinand  Baur, 
but  he  frankly  admitted  that  the  belief  in  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus  was  the  great  driving 
force  in  the  early  Christian  Church,  and  that 
apart  from  that  belief  Christianity  could  never 
have  commenced  its  world-wide  mission. 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


101 


Strauss  virtually  admitted  the  same  thing.  In 
recent  years  few  men  have  brought  to  this 
subject  a  greater  wealth  of  scholarship,  or  a 
more  pronounced  hostility  to  the  Gospel  narra¬ 
tive  than  has  Schmiedel.  His  admission  is 
significant:  “  It  is  undeniable  that  the  Church 
was  founded,  not  directly  upon  the  fact  of  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus,  but  upon  the  belief  in 
His  resurrection;  and  this  faith  worked  with 
equal  power  whether  the  resurrection  was  an 
actual  fact  or  not.”  1  The  more  dogmatic  the 
latter  part  of  the  sentence,  the  more  impera¬ 
tive  it  is  for  this  distinguished  critic  to  account 
for  the  origin  of  the  belief. 

Christianity  is!  What  started  it?  It  had 
little  or  nothing  in  the  way  of  wealth  or  ma¬ 
terial  resource.  It  had  no  friends  at  court. 
It  had  no  military  power  or  propaganda.  Its 
early  adherents  were  admittedly  men  and 
women  of  little  social  influence.  Its  teachings 
cut  against  the  grain  of  human  preference,  de¬ 
sire  and  habit.  It  called  men  to  a  life  of  re¬ 
nunciation  and  service.  It  found  no  place 
within  its  fellowship  for  the  cruelties  and  the 
immoralities  that  marked  many  of  the  amuse¬ 
ments  of  the  day.  It  provoked  the  hatred  of 
1  “  Encyclopaedia  Biblica,”  Vol.  4,  p.  4086. 


102  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


the  Jew,  the  scorn  of  the  Greek,  and  the  mailed 
fist  of  the  Roman.  It  had  nothing  in  its  re¬ 
sources  which  would  have  warranted  its  lead¬ 
ers  in  bidding  for  popularity,  even  had  they 
been  tempted  in  that  direction.  What  started 
the  movement?.  Practically  all  thinkers, 
whether  believers  or  sceptics,  agree  that  it  was 
belief  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  which  fur¬ 
nished  the  impelling  power. 

Here,  however,  the  two  sets  of  thinkers  di¬ 
vide.  Sceptics  say,  “  People  have  often  found 
wonderful  energy  in  a  mistaken  belief,  so  it  is 
reasonable  to  assume  that  the  disciples  and 
their  friends  were  entirely  mistaken, — their 
wonderful  belief  having  no  foundation  in  fact, 
although  it  furnished  them  with  a  great  emo¬ 
tional  dynamic.’’ 

I  have  tried  to  state  the  attitude  of  modern 
unbelief  with  scrupulous  fairness. 

It  will  be  seen  at  a  glance  that  this  attitude 
of  scepticism  does  not  impeach  the  honour  or 
the  integrity  of  the  early  Christian  community. 
There  was  a  period  when  unbelief  charged 
Jesus,  or  His  friends,  or  both,  with  downright 
falsehood.  It  did  not  hesitate  to  denounce  the 
resurrection  story  as  sheer  fabrication.  A 
German  scholar  of  the  eighteenth  century 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


103 


named  Reimarus  took  this  position.  He  was 
the  impassioned  exponent  of  natural  religion, 
and  the  savage  opponent,  not  only  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,  but  of  the  very  idea  of  a  revealed  re¬ 
ligion.  When  he  confronted  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  statement  of  the  Resurrection,  he  did  not 
hesitate  to  describe  it  as  the  product  of  col¬ 
lusion  and  fraud.  It  is  a  significant  fact  that 
no  school  of  modern  thought  cares,  to  be  asso¬ 
ciated  with  such  a  view. 

The  explanation  based  on  falsehood  is  there¬ 
fore  ruled  out  by  a  practically  unanimous  ver¬ 
dict.  How  then  did  the  belief  in  the  Resurrec¬ 
tion  originate  ? 

It  has  been  suggested  that  Jesus  never  really 
died.  This  peculiar  theory  makes  much  of  the 
admitted  fact  that  crucifixion  is  a  slow  and 
lingering  death;  that  a  victim  might  lie  for 
several  hours  on  the  cross,  and  if  removed  in 
a  condition  of  unconsciousness  induced  by  ex¬ 
haustion,  might  revive  after  careful  ministra¬ 
tions.  It  is  doubtful  if  this  theory,  which  em¬ 
bodies  improbability  enough  to  be  considered 
as  practically  impossible,  has  any  very  strenu¬ 
ous  school  of  defenders  to-day.  It  has  to  dis¬ 
pose  of  these  facts,  (1)  that  all  the  evangelists 
pronounced  Him  dead;  (2)  that  the  Roman 


104  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


soldier,  according  to  the  Fourth  Gospel,  made 
the  assurance  of  His  death  doubly  sure  by  his 
well-aimed  spear  thrust  into  the  heart;  (3) 
that  the  executioners,  trained  Roman  soldiers, 
believed  Him  dead,  and  were,  perhaps,  of  all 
men  the  least  likely  to  be  deceived;  (4)  that, 
in  any  case,  the  greatest  problem  of  all  re¬ 
mains,  viz.,  the  disposition  of  the  body  of  the 
Crucified !  According  to  the  “  swoon  ”  theory, 
what  became  of  that  body?  Jesus  had  too 
many  shrewd,  competent  and  implacable 
enemies  to  permit  His  friends  to  carry  His 
exhausted  body  away  where  it  could  be  nursed 
back  to  life;  (5)  and  no  less  a  critic  than 
Strauss  has  shown  how  utterly  absurd  is  the 
notion  that  the  sight  of  such  an  emaciated  suf¬ 
ferer  who  had  never  died  could  create  in  the 
disciples  the  assurance  of  the  Resurrection 
triumph.  A  theory  which  disgusts  a  sceptical 
thinker  like  Strauss,  who  was  only  too  anxious 
to  find  a  naturalistic  explanation  of  the  Resur¬ 
rection  story,  may  safely  be  laid  aside  as  un¬ 
worthy  of  serious  discussion. 

We  now  come  to  the  theory  of  Hallucina¬ 
tion.  It  runs  somewhat  as  follows :  The  death 
of  Jesus  was  a  terrible  blow  to  His  disciples; 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


105 


they  could  not  endure  the  thought  that  their 
beloved  Master  should  pass  forever  under  the 
dominion  of  death ;  they  became  nervous,  high 
strung,  and  emotionally  restive;  they  worked 
themselves  up  to  an  abnormal  stage  of  excite¬ 
ment  ;  finally  they  thought  they  saw  Him,  their 
thoughts  being  inspired  by  their  wishes,  and, 
thinking  they  saw  Him  they  were  swept  for¬ 
ward  upon  the  tide  of  a  great  spiritual  dy¬ 
namic  ;  they  preached  “  the  Gospel  of  the 
Resurrection.” 

This  is  the  explanation  which  is  generally 
favoured  by  unbelief,  doubtless  because  it 
seems  to  cover  the  situation  most  effectively. 

I  believe  there  never  was  an  explanation  of 
a  difficult  situation  so  utterly  flimsy,  so  arbi¬ 
trary  or  so  futile.  First,  it  does  violence  to 
the  obvious  facts  concerning  the  mental  con¬ 
dition  of  the  apostles  and  their  friends.  It  is 
admitted  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  hallucina¬ 
tion.  Every  alienist  of  standing  will  vouch  for 
this.  If  the  story  of  the  resurrection  had  been 
put  forward  by  some  one  person,  this  hallucina¬ 
tion  theory  might  have  carried  weight.  But  can 
we  possibly  indulge  the  thought  that  a  group 
of  persons,  whose  conduct  had  previously  been 
marked  by  common  sense  and  average  mental 


106  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


poise  should,  all  at  once,  induce  within  them¬ 
selves  such  an  abnormal  mental  condition  as 
to  border  upon  insanity?  In  Webster’s  New 
International  Dictionary  we  have  a  definition 
of  the  word  “  hallucination  ”  in  which  it  is  de¬ 
scribed  as  a  condition  “  usually  arising  from 
disorder  of  the  nervous  system,  as  in  delirium 
tremens.” 

There  were  ten  separate  appearances  of 
Jesus  to  His  followers,  one  of  these  appear¬ 
ances  being  granted  to  an  individual,  Mary 
Magdalene,  and  another  to  a  group  of  about 
five  hundred  persons.  Can  any  responsible 
thinker  argue  that  these  separate  groups  of 
people,  on  ten  different  occasions,  were  all  af¬ 
flicted  with  hallucination,  that  this  condition 
lasted  for  a  period  of  forty  days,  and  that, 
after  this  abnormal  period,  every  one  was  sud¬ 
denly  and  completely  restored  to  normal  con¬ 
ditions  ? 

The  hallucination  theory  has  to  presuppose 
a  general  mental  and  spiritual  attitude  of 
Christ’s  followers  which  is  exactly  the  opposite 
of  that  which  obtained.  Renan  has  exploited 
this  theory  as  adroitly  as  any  one,  and  he  is 
compelled  to  describe  the  attitude  of  Mary 
Magdalene  and  indeed  the  whole  Christian 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


107 


community  as  one  of  expectation.  They  not 
only  hoped,  but  expected ,  that  Jesus  would 
arise,  according  to  Renan.  It  is  as  though  this 
curious  French  critic  had  said,  “If  people  go 
looking  for  ghosts,  of  course  they  will  find 
them ;  the  wish  is  father  to  the  thought.”  Now 
that  is  precisely  the  mood  which  the  early 
Christian  believers  did  not  indulge.  What 
took  Mary  to  the  sepulchre  ?  She  went  there, 
with  her  Christian  sisters,  carrying  spices 
“  that  .  .  .  they  might  anoint  him  ” 

(Mark  16:  1).  They  expected  to  fulfill  the  last 
offices  of  love  over  a  dead  body.  When  the 
news  of  the  resurrection  was  told  to  part  or 
the  whole  of  the  apostles’  group,  what  was  the 
first  reaction?  They  “believed  not”  (Mark 
16:  2).  When  the  two  disciples  met  the  Mas¬ 
ter  on  the  way  to  Emmaus  on  the  evening  of 
the  third  day,  their  mental  attitude  can  be 
gauged  by  their  sorrowful  confession  (Luke 
24:21).  They  said,  “But  we  trusted.”  In 
the  light  of  their  sorrowful  demeanour  as 
stated  in  verse  17,  we  can  understand  their 
feeling.  It  was  as  though  they  said,  “  All 
along  we  had  hoped  and  believed  that  He 
would  be  the  one  to  redeem  Israel,  but  alas!  ” 
After  their  wonderful  experience  with  the 


108  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


Stranger  and  their  unwavering  conviction  of 
His  victory  over  death,  they  reported  their  dis¬ 
covery  to  their  colleagues.  With  what  result? 
“  Neither  believed  they  them  ”  (Mark  16:  13). 
Perhaps  the  most  striking  evidence  of  this  at¬ 
titude  of  unbelief  on  the  part  of  the  apostles 
is  found  in  the  report  made  to  them  by  the 
group  of  women  who  returned  from  the  van¬ 
quished  tomb:  “  and  their  words  seemed  to 
them  (the  apostles)  as  idle  tales,  and  they  be¬ 
lieved  them  not”  (Luke  24:  11).  Idle  tales! 
Yet  it  is  men  who  take  this  attitude  of  scepti¬ 
cism  toward  the  event  who  are  charged  by 
Renan  with  cultivating  such  feverish  expecta¬ 
tion  that  by  a  curious  psychological  process, 
that  expectation  became  evidence.  When,  ac¬ 
cording  to  Luke’s  narrative,  the  Risen  Lord  ac¬ 
tually  stood  before  them  and  revealed  to  them 
His  wounds,  their  attitude  was  “  they  believed 
not  for  joy”  (Luke  24:  41).  They  believed, 
of  course,  but  they  believed  in  spite  of  them¬ 
selves.  It  was  as  though  they  said  to  each 
other,  “  Is  not  this  too  good  to  be  true  ?  Are 
wTe  not  in  danger  of  waking  up  to  find  that  it 
has  all  been  a  wonderful  dream?  ”  If  we  are 
to  be  guided  by  all  the  facts  of  the  case  there 
can  be  no  escape  from  the  conclusion  that  the 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


109 


apostles  had  not  a  particle  of  hope  or  an  atom 
of  expectation  that  they  would  ever  see  the 
face  of  their  Master  again. 

The  case  of  Thomas  is  still  more  definite. 
He  declared  in  effect  that  no  power  on  earth 
would  ever  be  able  to  convince  him  of  the  truth 
of  the  narrative,  apart  from  physical  test.  He 
must  actually  see  the  wounds  upon  the  Mas¬ 
ter’s  body,  put  his  fingers  into  the  print  of  the 
nails,  and  thrust  his  hand  into  the  wounded 
side.  His  words  simply  stated,  in  somewhat 
blunt  and  logical  form,  the  general  mood  of 
scepticism  toward  the  resurrection  which  at 
first  dominated  the  entire  Christian  commu¬ 
nity.  If  we  are  to  build  theories  out  of  facts 
and  not  use  theories  to  ride  roughshod  over 
historical  incidents,  the  Vision  Theory,  as  elab¬ 
orated  by  Renan,  Strauss  and  others,  and 
based  on  a  theory  of  self-hypnosis,  utterly 
crumbles.  By  no  method  of  honourable  intel¬ 
lectual  procedure  can  it  be  made  to  fit  the 
facts.  Professor  Bruce,  who  ranks  among  our 
greatest  Christian  apologists,  writes,  “  The  dis¬ 
ciples  were  in  so  depressed  a  state  of  mind  that 
subjective  visions  were  the  last  thing  in  the 
world  likely  to  befall  them.”  2 

3  “  Apologetics,”  A.  B.  Bruce,  D.  D.,  p.  390. 


110  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


Another  insuperable  difficulty  met  by  the 
“  vision  theory  ”  is  the  time  element  in  the 
narrative,  and  the  fact  that  the  period  of  ap¬ 
pearances  was  so  brief.  By  the  western 
method  of  measuring  time,  it  was  less  than 
two  days  from  the  period  of  the  crucifixion 
until  the  first  appearance  of  the  risen  Saviour. 
In  this  statement  all  the  writers  concur.  Ob¬ 
viously  there  was  no  time  for  an  indefinite 
number  of  people  to  work  themselves  up  to 
such  a  pitch  of  mental  disturbance  as  to  make 
hallucination  possible.  Almost  before  the  first 
shock  of  sorrow  caused  by  Christ’s  death  had 
passed,  the  news  of  His  victory  was  an¬ 
nounced.  And  the  fact  that  this  period  of  ap¬ 
pearances  extended  to  about  forty  days  only, 
and  then  suddenly  and  entirely  ceased,  is  a 
phase  of  the  question  fatal  to  the  theory  at  is¬ 
sue.  Hundreds  of  people  do  not  suddenly  and 
simultaneously  become  the  victims  of  hallu¬ 
cination,  and  then,  almost  at  a  given  moment, 
suddenly  and  simultaneously  recover  their 
mental  and  emotional  equilibrium. 

The  Theory  is  Hopeless. 

There  is  another  explanation,  with  which 
the  name  of  Keim  is  closely  associated., 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


111 


Speaking  of  his  work  “  Jesus  of  Nazara,” 
Professor  Peake  says,  “  It  is  the  noblest  of  all 
the  rationalistic  Lives  of  Jesus,  if  indeed  *  ra¬ 
tionalistic  '  be  not  too  unjust  an  epithet.” 3 
When  Keim  comes  to  the  story  of  the  resur¬ 
rection  he  tries  to  interpret  it  by  a  spiritual¬ 
istic  method.  He  admits  the  reality  of  Christ’s 
death,  and  just  as  readily  grants  that  the  dis¬ 
ciples  actually  saw  something  which  was  ob¬ 
jective  to  their  consciousness.  What  they  saw, 
according  to  Keim,  was  the  glorified  Spirit  of 
Jesus,  After  the  crucifixion  the  personality 
of  Jesus  continued  to  live,  but  it  lived  as  pure 
spirit  without  a  return  to  the  body.  God 
graciously  sent  this  spirit  of  the  Master  to 
comfort  and  inspire  His  followers,  and  to  as¬ 
sure  them  of  life  eternal.  And  so  the  spirit 
of  Jesus  was  seen  by  His  disciples  as  an  ob¬ 
jective  reality,  and  this  “telegram  from 
heaven  ”  opened  the  way  for  the  all-conquer¬ 
ing  Gospel. 

If  I  were  a  confirmed  unbeliever,  hitherto 
convinced  of  the  unreality  of  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  story,  I  should  be  utterly  unable  to  find 
any  relief  in  Keim’s  modification  of  the  nar¬ 
rative,  as  long  as  I  remained  wedded  to  nat- 
8  “  The  Bible/’  by  Dr.  A.  S.  Peake,  p.  321. 


112  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


uralism.  To  me  it  would  involve  a  super¬ 
natural  element  just  as  surely  as  would  the 
orthodox  statement.  In  order  to  accept  it  I 
should  be  compelled  to  concede  the  reality  of  a 
spiritual  world  into  which  the  person  of  the 
Crucified  passed  at  His  death,  or  out  of  which 
He  flashed  His  messages  of  hope  and  courage 
upon  the  perplexed  minds  and  wounded  hearts 
of  His  followers.  For,  according  to  this 
theory,  the  person  of  Jesus  would  not  be  lying 
in  the  sepulchre,  it  would  exist  in  the  form 
of  a  disembodied  spirit.  The  explanation 
would  be  just  as  difficult  of  acceptance  to  a 
.  consistent  materialist  as  the  traditional  narra¬ 
tive.  And  it  would  have  this  additional  dis¬ 
advantage,  that  it  would  be  in  conflict  with  the 
recorded  facts.  It  makes  no  attempt  to  solve 
the  problem  of  the  empty  grave.  It  is  im¬ 
measurably  harder  to  reconcile  with  the  inci¬ 
dent  of  Thomas,  and  the  physical  test  that  was 
offered  him. 

Keim’s  telegram  theory  is  not  extensively 
held,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  it  ever  will  be. 

There  is  one  additional  form  of  unbelief  in 
the  resurrection  of  Jesus  to  which  reference 
must  be  made.  It  is  the  attitude  of  disregard. 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


113 


Its  basis  is  non-acceptance  of  the  event,  fol¬ 
lowed  by  inability  or  unwillingness  to  give  the 
question  any  serious  thought.  Put  into  words 
it  may  be  stated  as  follows:  “  Of  course  there 
was  no  actual  resurrection.  There  could  not 
have  been.  Possibly  no  one  knows  how  the 
belief  originated.  The  human  mind  has  all 
sorts  of  queer  ways  in  reaching  certain  con¬ 
clusions.  How  this  particular  enthusiasm  orig¬ 
inated  is  a  matter  lying  beyond  our  ken,  and 
we  dismiss  it  from  our  mental  efforts.”  It  is 
ignored.  Like  the  baffled  boy  before  the 
Chinese  puzzle,  they  say,  “  We  give  it  up.” 
That  this  is  the  attitude  frequently  assumed 
is  a  matter  of  evidence.  We  say  nothing  at 
this  time  about  the  intellectual  cowardice  in¬ 
volved.  Christianity  is  the  biggest  and  most 
potent  fact  in  our  world.  The  belief  in  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus  was  the  driving  energy  of 
original  Christianity.  Responsible  thinkers 
cannot  very  well  “  give  up  ”  all  serious  at¬ 
tempts  to  account  for  this  historical  situation 
and  yet  retain  the  respect  which  thinkers  covet. 
It  is  exceedingly  difficult,  if  not  impossible, 
to  argue  with  any  man  while  he  is  in  this 
mood.  An  argument  assumes  a  certain  ele¬ 
ment  of  moral  earnestness.  Truth  exacts 


114  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


search  and  persistent  effort  on  the  part  of 
every  man  who  desires  her  comradeship.  She 
imparts  no  light  to  those  whose  minds  are 
sealed  by  prejudice,  or  who  can  only  bring  to 
her  high  tasks  an  easy-going  and  dilettante 
temper.  The  attitude  of  mere  disregard  of 
the  Evangelical  position  is  altogether  too  com¬ 
mon.  It  is  more  dangerous  than  open  and 
pronounced  hostility.  A  rather  strenuous  de¬ 
nial  of  some  Christian  doctrine  implies  some 
measure  of  moral  fervour. 

A  great  many  people,  however,  are  too  un¬ 
concerned  to  deny — they  cannot  be  bothered. 
In  these  days  they  voice  the  mood  of  the  an¬ 
cient  Athenians  who,  with  a  touch  of  playful 
irony,  replied  to  St.  Paul’s  impassioned  ap¬ 
peal  with  these  words,  “  We  will  hear  thee 
again  of  this  matter.”  It  was  as  though  they 
had  said,  “  Some  day,  when  we  have  nothing 
else  to  do,  when  time  hangs  heavily  on  our 
hands,  when  we  would  welcome  a  little  in¬ 
tellectual  diversion,  anything,  indeed,  in  the 
way  of  a  mental  or  emotional  fillip — some  day 
we  will  hear  thee  again  on  this  matter.”  The 
problem  of  the  resurrection  can  never  be 
solved  in  any  such  a  cynical  or  listless  temper. 
Only  those  who  seek  shall  find.  If  truth  is 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


115 


not  worth  unprejudiced  study  and  impassioned 
search  it  is  worth  nothing.  In  the  name  of  in¬ 
tellectual  self-respect  Christian  Faith  has  a 
right  to  demand  from  those  who  reject  this 
great  truth  a  consistent  and  rational  explana¬ 
tion  of  the  immediate  and  marvellous  genesis 
of  belief  in  it  on  the  part  of  the  early  Christian 
community.  There  must  be  no  attitude  of  “  I 
give  it  up !  ”  There  must  be  no  intellectual 
side-stepping.  There  must  be  no  evasion. 
The  issues  are  immeasurable.  They  stretch 
out  to  the  Infinite  itself.  Enough  has  already 
been  written  to  show  that  every  school  of 
thought  in  seeking  to  explain  the  situation 
upon  a  basis  of  naturalism  involves  itself  in  a 
breakdown,  or  becomes  entangled  in  a  series 
of  suggestions  more  difficult  of  acceptance 
than  the  orthodox  doctrine  itself.  This  is  a 
significant  fact. 

There  is  one  line  of  thought  bearing  on  the 
question  which  applies  to  those  who  strenu¬ 
ously  deny  the  narrative  as  well  as  to  those 
who  dismiss  it  as  an  unexplained  affair.  In¬ 
deed  the  argument  in  question  is  addressed  to 
every  one  who  admits  the  historic  life  of  Jesus, 
and  His  death  on  the  Cross.  With  those  who 
are  unwilling  to  grant  these  two  admissions 


116  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


it  is  obvious  that  no  form  of  discussion  is  even 
possible. 

Here  then  we  start  with  the  irreducible  mini¬ 
mum  of  admitted  historical  truth.  Jesus  lived 
and  died.  He  was  sentenced  to  crucifixion  by 
the  authority  of  Pontius  Pilate  to  placate  the 
clamouring,  howling  Jewish  populace.  The 
doubter  must  concede  this  claim. 

What  became  of  His  body?  It  went  some¬ 
where.  Believers  and  unbelievers  admit  this 
much.  Are  we  claiming  too  much  when  we 
assert  that  practically  all  intelligent  thinkers 
admit  that  it  was  placed  in  the  sepulchre  and 
surrounded  by  an  armed  Roman  guard?  Up 
to  this  point  nearly  all  serious  students  are  in 
substantial  agreement.  After  the  body  had 
been  placed  in  the  sepulchre  and  surrounded 
by  a  company  of  Roman  soldiers — then  what? 
Up  to  this  stage  the  enemies  of  Jesus  had 
shown  cunning  of  the  highest  order.  They 
had  revealed  a  resourcefulness  of  intrigue  and 
a  relentlessness  of  temper  before  which  we 
marvel.  The  worthiest  traditions  of  the  San¬ 
hedrin  had  been  set  aside;  the  Roman  Gov¬ 
ernor  had  been  skillfully  browbeaten  and 
coerced  into  a  repugnant  position;  the  popu¬ 
lace  had  been  craftily  excited ;  the  whole 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


117 


tragedy  had  been  staged  with  extraordinary 
skill.  Is  it  even  remotely  possible  that  such 
masterly  cunning  linked  to  such  implacable 
enmity  would  have  lapsed  into  carelessness  at 
the  last?  His  foes  recalled  expressions  which 
Jesus  had  used  concerning  His  “  rising  again.” 
Probably  not  one  of  them  believed  in  the  pos¬ 
sibility  of  such  a  thing,  but  the  whole  narra¬ 
tive  proves  that  they  did  think  that,  if  the  dis¬ 
ciples  could  secure  possession  of  the  body,  they 
might  spread  a  report  that  He  had  risen  again. 
In  face  of  their  admitted  enmity,  and  the  skill 
with  which  they  had  conducted  their  intrigues, 
can  any  one  seriously  doubt  the  truth  of  that 
part  of  the  narrative  which  describes  their  ac¬ 
tion  in  appealing  for  the  attendance  of  a 
Roman  guard  at  the  sepulchre?  Will  not 
every  unbiased  thinker  admit  that  it  was  over¬ 
whelmingly  probable  that  some  such  step 
should  be  taken? 

We  now  reach  the  stage  where  we  see  the 
body  of  the  Crucified  laid  in  the  sepulchre 
with  an  armed  guard  of  Roman  soldiers  sta¬ 
tioned  close  to  the  spot ! 

What  happened  next?  Either  the  body  of 
Jesus  was  taken  away  from  the  sepulchre;  or 


118  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


it  remained  there,  to  pass  through  the  progres¬ 
sive  stages  of  putrefaction;  or — Jesus  arose ! 

Can  imagination  itself  portray  any  other 
procedure?  Was  it  even  possible  for  events 
to  have  assumed  any  other  order  of  develop¬ 
ment  ?  Let  us  look  at  the  first  possibility.  The 
body  of  Jesus  might  have  been  removed.  By 
whom?  If  it  was  removed  it  could  only  have 
been  done  by  Christ’s  enemies  or  His  friends. 
Now  the  enemies  of  Jesus  would  have  no  pos¬ 
sible  motive  for  removing  the  body — indeed, 
they  would  have  every  possible  motive  for  con¬ 
fining  it  in  the  grave.  It  was  to  guarantee  its 
permanent  retention  there  that  Caiaphas  and 
his  colleagues  requested  a  military  guard. 
For  an  enemy  of  Jesus  to  remove  the  body, 
or  to  cause  it  to  be  removed,  would  be  an  act 
stultifying  the  whole  order  of  procedure  on 
the  part  of  the  group  to  which  he  belonged. 
It  would  be  to  open  the  way  for  the  declara¬ 
tion  of  the  “  empty  grave  ”  which  every  in¬ 
stinct  of  Jewish  enmity  would  dread.  This 
phase  of  the  first  alternative  may  be  regarded 
as  ruled  out  by  universal  consent. 

Did  the  friends  of  Jesus  remove  the  body? 
How  could  they?  They  were  only  a  handful 
of  people  with  no  social  influence!  No  scheme 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


119 


of  theirs  could  possibly  cope  with  the  iron  dis¬ 
cipline  of  a  Roman  guard.  To  imagine  that 
a  few  heart-broken  men  and  women,  too  dazed 
to  think,  too  stunned  to  act,  could  literally 
break  through  an  armed  Roman  guard  and 
capture  the  body  of  their  Lord,  is  to  ask  more 
than  human  credulity  can  grant,  and  even  if 
this  had  been  possible,  how  could  the  sight  of 
the  dead  body  of  their  Lord  furnish  them  with 
the  spiritual  dynamic  required?  Everything 
goes  to  prove  that  the  death  of  Jesus  left  His 
followers  in  the  last  stages  of  helplessness  and 
hopelessness.  Their  prospects  had  perished; 
their  hearts  were  broken;  their  morale  was 
shattered.  Something  happened  which  sud¬ 
denly  and  completely  changed  these  men  from 
dejection  to  immeasurable  energy,  from  a 
group  of  cowed  and  crushed  souls  to  the 
mighty  conquerors  of  an  evil  world.  Cheer¬ 
fully  they  faced  hunger  and  thirst,  taunts  and 
sneers,  cursings  and  revilings,  the  stonings  of 
the  Jews,  and  the  rods  of  the  Roman  lictors; 
joyously  they  met  the  ordeals  of  martyrdom. 
Does  any  sane  thinker  dare  to  assert  that  they 
found  their  inspiration  for  such  experiences  in 
the  successful  theft  of  the  dead  body  of  their 
Lord,  even  if  such  a  theft  had  been  possible? 


120  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


There  are  some  things  harder  to  believe  than 
miracles,  and  this  is  one. 

That  the  body  of  Jesus  was  removed  from 
the  grave,  notwithstanding  the  presence  of  an 
armed  Roman  guard  placed  there  with  definite 
instructions  to  frustrate  any  such  an  attempt, 
is  a  proposition  which  the  human  mind  simply 
cannot  accept.  It  borders  upon  the  impossible, 
and  even  had  it  been  done,  it  would  utterly 
fail  to  account  for  those  marvellous  spiritual 
experiences  which  only  belief  in  Christ's  actual 
resurrection  could  furnish. 

We  proceed  to  consider  the  next  explana¬ 
tion.  Did  the  body  of  Jesus  remain  in  the 
grave,  to  pass  through  the  progressive  stages 
of  putrefaction?  This  is  the  view  generally 
accepted  by  unbelief.  So  Matthew  Arnold 
dolefully  sings: 

But  He  is  dead,  and  there  He  lies 
In  that  lorn  Syrian  town; 

And  on  His  grave  with  shining  eyes , 
The  Syrian  stars  look  down . 

Let  us  see  what  this  position  involves. 
There  cannot  be  the  slightest  doubt  that 
within  a  few  weeks  after  the  death  of  Jesus 
there  was  a  wonderful  renaissance  of  faith  in 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


121 


Him.  His  scattered  followers  came  together. 
They  became  bound  to  each  other  by  the 
strongest  and  most  sacred  ties.  Their  mood 
changed  from  depression  to  exultation,  from 
sorrow  to  joy,  from  weakness  to  all-conquer¬ 
ing  strength.  Immediately  afterward  the 
leaders  of  the  movement  began  to  preach. 
Their  pronouncements  were  clear,  positive  and 
unfaltering.  The  assertion  of  the  resurrection 
of  their  Lord  lay  at  the  very  centre  of  their 
message.  The  first  thing  they  did  was  to  elect 
a  colleague  to  fill  the  place  vacated  by  Judas, 
in  order  that  the  one  so  elected  “  might  be  a 
witness  with  us  of  his  resurrection.”  4  In  his 
sermon  on  the  day  of  Pentecost  Peter  makes 
the  resurrection  the  goal  and  climax  of  his 
impassioned  challenge,  “  Whom  God  has  raised 
up,  having  loosed  the  pains  of  death,  because 
it  was  not  possible  for  him  to  be  holden  of 
it.” 6  In  almost  identical  words  the  same 
leader  advised  the  astonished  crowd  as  it  gath¬ 
ered  round  the  man  who  had  been  healed  of 
his  lameness,  “Ye  .  .  .  killed  the  Prince 

of  life,  whom  God  hath  raised  from  the 
dead.”  6  When  summoned  before  the  Council 
to  answer  for  their  conduct,  Peter  again  hurls 
4  Acts  i :  22.  B  Acts  2 : 24. 


6  Acts  3 : 15. 


122  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


forth  the  same  truth  in  almost  exactly  the 
same  words,  “  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth,  whom 
ye  crucified,  whom  God  raised  from  the 
dead.”  7  In  a  later  part  of  the  same  chapter  the 
assertion  of  Christ's  resurrection  is  revealed 
as  the  central,  vital  and  burning  theme  of  the 
Apostolic  message,  “  With  great  power  gave 
the  apostles  witness  of  the  resurrection  of  the 
Lord  Jesus.”  8  In  his  address  before  the  house¬ 
hold  of  Cornelius  Peter  asserts  the  same  truth, 
and  makes  it  the  basis  of  the  evangelical  Gos¬ 
pel:  “  Him  God  raised  up  the  third  day,  and 
showed  him  openly.” 0  Through  his  long 
career  as  the  great  outstanding  herald  of  the 
new  faith  St.  Paul  never  swerved  from  the 
position  he  took  in  his  first  recorded  sermon  at 
Antioch  in  Pisidia,  “  They  took  him  down 
from  the  tree,  and  laid  him  in  a  sepulchre. 
But  God  raised  him  from  the  dead:  And  he 
was  seen  many  days  of  them  which  came  up 
with  him  from  Galilee  to  Jerusalem,  who  are 
his  witnesses  unto  the  people.”  10 

Enough  has  been  written  to  justify  the  as¬ 
sertion,  an  assertion  generally  accepted,  that 
the  affirmation  of  Christ’s  resurrection  was  the 

8  Acts  4:33. 

10  Acts  13 : 29-31. 


7  Acts  4 : 10. 

8  Acts  10:40. 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


123 


one  outstanding  and  continuous  theme  of 
Apostolic  preaching.  It  is  almost  impossible 
to  believe  that  there  ever  could  have  been  any 
Apostolic  preaching  of  any  kind  without  it. 

This  preaching  made  a  profound  impression. 
Vast  multitudes  were  compelled  to  think.  The 
conscience  of  the  people  was  reached.  Deep 
emotions  were  aroused.  Thousands  accepted 
fellowship  with  the  Christian  group,  and 
gladly  announced  themselves  as  followers  of 
the  Crucified.  So  great  was  the  impression 
made  by  the  preaching  of  the  resurrection  that 
“  a  great  company  of  the  priests  were  obedient 
to  the  faith.”  11  This  brief  statement  is 
stamped  with  immense  significance,  “  A  great 
company  of  the  priests,”  the  representatives  of 
the  class  who  took  the  most  prominent  part  in 
the  persecution  and  death  of  Jesus,  now  openly 
announce  their  adherence  to  the  cause  of  the 
Crucified.  They  rank  among  the  converts  to 
that  Faith  which  finds  its  central  truth  and  its 
impelling  force  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus. 

Does  unbelief  accept  this  statement  of  his¬ 
torical  facts  ?  If  this  was  not  the  way  in  which 
early  Christianity  arose  to  influence  and 
power,  how  did  it  originate?  Where  does 

11  Acts  6 : 7. 


/ 


124  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 

legend  cease  and  valid  history  begin?  Were 
Justin  Martyr  and  Polycarp  and  Ignatius  of 
Antioch  historical  persons  ?  Doubtless.  Were 
the  commanding  Christian  figures  of  the  gene¬ 
ration  preceding  them  also  historical  realities, 
or  myths,  namely,  the  Apostle  John,  Timothy, 
Peter,  Paul?  They  must  have  been  historical 
figures  because  upon  no  other  assumption  can 
the  origin  of  Christianity  be  accounted  for. 

Where  does  the  argument  now  stand?  We 
see  a  handful  of  despised  men  and  women 
transformed  into  a  mighty  and  conquering 
company,  thrilled,  inspired  and  energized  by 
the  assurance  of  the  resurrection.  We  see 
them  presenting  this  truth  with  such  over¬ 
whelming  conviction  that  thousands  share  their 
faith,  while  among  these  thousands  we  may 
note  “  a  great  company  of  the  priests.”  We 
see  the  authorities  of  Jerusalem  perplexed, 
baffled,  and  driven  to  their  wits’  ends,  saying, 
“  What  shall  we  do  to  these  men?  ”  And  yet, 
on  the  theory  of  unbelief,  the  body  of  Jesus 
was  lying  in  the  grave,  passing  through  the 
various  stages  of  putrefaction. 

“  What  shall  we  do?  ”  There  was  one  thing 
that  Caiaphas  and  his  colleagues  could  have 
done,  and  could  have  done  easily  and  quickly. 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


125 


They  could  have  issued  a  statement  to  the  pub¬ 
lic.  They  could  have  said,  “  This  heresy  which 
gathers  around  the  name  of  the  Crucified  has 
no  foundation  in  fact.  There  was  no*  resur¬ 
rection.  You  are  the  victims  of  foolish  error. 
The  body  of  Jesus  lies  in  the  tomb  where  it 
was  laid.  If  this  is  doubted,  come  with  the 
members  of  the  Sanhedrin  at  such  and  such  a 
time;  the  stone  shall  be  removed  and  the  body 
exhumed,  or  at  least  exposed  to  view.  Seeing 
is  believing.  Let  there  be  an  end  forever  to  a 
heresy  based  upon  a  series  of  false  and  foolish 
assertions,” 

If  the  body  of  Jesus  was  lying  in  the  grave 
as  this  theory  postulates,  is  it  not  as  certain 
as  anything  unproved  can  be  that  Caiaphas 
and  his  colleagues  would  have  taken  this 
course?  How  could  they  have  failed  to  take 
it?  The  question  at  issue  was  a  question  of 
fact.  The  impassioned  preaching  of  Peter  and 
his  brethren  could  have  been  silenced  forever 
had  a  deputation  of  Jewish  citizens  been  sum¬ 
moned  to  the  sepulchre  to  verify  the  state¬ 
ments  of  Caiaphas,  and  if — if — the  body  had 
been  there.  That  Caiaphas  and  his  comrades 
made  no  such  overture  is  another  and  final 
proof  that  the  body  was  not  there.  Then 


126  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


where  was  it?  There  is  only  one  possible  an¬ 
swer.  We  are  face  to  face  with  the  inmost 
truth  of  the  Christian  Gospel.  Standing  in 
reverent  thought  beside  that  grave  we  can  al¬ 
most  hear  the  angel’s  message,  “  He  is  not 
here,  He  is  risen.” 

We  admit  differences  and  discrepancies  in 
the  narratives.  Do  such  discrepancies  consti¬ 
tute  a  valid  prejudice  against  them?  Suppose 
the  four  narratives  had  been  identical  in  form 
and  almost  identical  in  language !  In  that  case 
the  close  resemblance  might  have  created  mis¬ 
givings.  Unbelief  could  have  said,  “  This 
k>oks  suspicious;  as  a  rule  witnesses  do  not 
give  their  evidence  in  exactly  similar  form  un¬ 
less  some  element  of  collusion  is  involved.” 
Not  long  ago  a  fire  broke  out  in  an  important 
public  building,  doing  considerable  damage. 
Two  witnesses  testified  concerning  the  event. 
There  was  considerable  conflict  in  their  state¬ 
ments.  One  said  the  fire  started  at  ten  o’clock 
in  the  evening,  the  other  said  eleven  o’clock. 
One  witness  was  speaking  of  standard  time, 
and  the  other  of  daylight-saving  time.  There 
was  marked  verbal  conflict,  yet  both  statements 
were  truthful.  One  said  that  a  strong  wind 
fanned  the  flames,  the  other  said  very  little 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


127 


wind  was  stirring.  The  one  witness  observed 
the  fire  from  the  exposed  side  of  the  building, 
the  other  stood  on  the  sheltered  side.  Again 
there  was  discrepancy  of  statement,  yet  truth¬ 
ful  testimony  from  both  witnesses.  Given  a 
few  more  statements  such  as  these,  and  it 
would  be  easy  for  a  mind  that  merely  runs  to 
analysis  and  hair-splitting  criticism  to  prove,  to 
its  own  satisfaction,  that  no  such  building  had 
been  destroyed  by  fire  at  all.  But  it  had.  One 
need  only  read  the  article  on  the  Resurrection 
by  Dr.  Schmiedel  in  the  “  Encyclopaedia  Bib- 
lica  ”  to  see  this  type  of  mind  at  work.  After 
an  impartial  study  of  the  document  one  is  left 
with  the  all-compelling  feeling  that  the  writer 
started  out  with  a  dogmatic  pre judgment. 
His  mind  was  definitely  made  up  that  there 
was  no  resurrection,  and  all  his  exhaustive 
analysis  is  brought  in  to  demonstrate  his  nega¬ 
tive  assumption.  His  conclusion  is  reached 
long  before  his  study  begins.  As  against  this 
purely  negative  mental  attitude  in  the  presence 
of  which  probably  no  proofs  would  be  convinc¬ 
ing,  one  may  place  the  utterance  of  a  former 
Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England,  a  man  whose 
business  it  was  to  study  evidence  as  an  expert. 
He  declared  that  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus  was 


128  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


attested  by  proofs  as  final  and  determining  as 
any  that  had  ever  entered  into  the  settlement 
of  any  great  case  in  a  British  court. 

Without  surrendering  to  the  spirit  of  im¬ 
patience  provoked  by  such  a  writer  as 
Schmiedel,  one  is  forced  to  the  conclusion  that 
he  is  not  so  much  swayed  by  the  evidence  as 
by  some  assumption  and  predetermination  ly¬ 
ing  behind  the  proofs,  or  any  possible  proofs. 
We  are  therefore  compelled  to  leave  the  evi¬ 
dence,  and  meet  this  scholarly  critic  on  the 
remoter  field  of  philosophy.  There  is  just  one 
challenge  which  he  and  his  colleagues  must 
answer:  “  Why  should  it  be  thought  a  thing 
incredible  with  you  that  God  should  raise  the 
dead?” 12  Why?  The  thing  resolves  itself 
into  our  fundamental  conception  of  God!  Is 
God  free?  In  the  presence  of  some  tremen¬ 
dous  moral  need  or  issue,  has  the  Almighty 
any  liberty  of  action?  If  He  has  not,  then 
the  time  spent  on  a  study  of  the  evidences  of 
the  Christian  Gospel  is  a  total  waste!  If  God 
is  free  to  act  in  the  premises,  then  we  assert 
that  the  proofs  presented  are  adequate. 

“  Incredible Probably  Plato  had  the 
greatest  mind  of  the  ancient  civilization.  In 


12  Acts  26 :  8. 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


129 


any  case  we  may  say  there  were  few  greater. 
Suppose  it  were  possible  for  that  great  Greek 
thinker  to  visit  our  modern  life  for  one  day. 
We  may  imagine  him  sitting  in  the  room  where 
these  lines  are  written.  We  have  scarcely 
greeted  each  other  when  we  both  hear  the 
ringing  of  a  small  bell.  I  lift  my  telephone 
toward  me,  take  down  the  receiver,  and  talk 
down  a  tube.  This  conversation  is  continued 
for  two  minutes.  I  then  utter  the  usual  “  Good¬ 
bye,”  hang  up  the  receiver,  and  look  into  the 
puzzled  face  of  the  great  sage.  He  inquires  if 
I  have  actually  conversed  with  another  person, 
and  when  I  have  assured  him  of  the  fact  he 
asks  if  that  person  is  in  the  room  below  the 
table,  or  in  the  adjoining  room.  Imagine  his 
amazement  when  I  tell  him  that  I  have  been 
talking  to  my  son,  who  is  nearly  three  hundred 
miles  away!  Would  it  not  seem  incredible  to 
him  ?  When  we  conduct  a  conversation  across 
hundreds  of  miles  of  space  we  are  not  in  the 
realm  of  the  supernatural,  yet  to  Plato  the 
whole  affair  would  be  as  wonderful  as  though 
we  were.  The  simple  fact  is  that  we  do  not 
know  the  limits  of  the  natural.  It  may  well  be 
that  the  sharp  antithesis  between  the  natural 
and  the  supernatural  must  be  modified,  and  we 


130  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


shall  yet  discover  that  the  supernatural  is  but 
the  extension  of  the  natural.  The  most  timid 
souls  need  not  fear  that  this  will  involve  us  in 
Pantheism.  In  any  case  the  age  in  which  we 
live  does  not  favour  the  attitude  of  the  critic 
who  starts  out  with  the  assumption  that  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus  is  incredible,  and  there¬ 
fore  no  body  of  evidence  can  justify  its  whole¬ 
hearted  acceptance. 

The  author  of  “  Painted  Windows  ”  tells 
this  story;  “  One  day  when  he  was  deep  in  his 
studies  of  radiant  matter,  Sir  William  Crookes 
touched  a  little  table  which  stood  between  our 
two  chairs  and  said  to  me,  ‘  We  shall  announce 
to  the  world  in  a  year  or  two,  perhaps  sooner, 
that  the  atoms  of  which  this  table  is  composed 
are  made  up  of  tiny  charges  of  electricity,  and 
we  shall  prove  that  each  one  of  those  tiny 
electrons,  relative  to  its  size,  is  farther  away 
from  its  nearest  neighbour  than  our  earth  is 
from  the  nearest  star/  I  have  lived  to  see 
this  prophecy  fulfilled,  though  its  implications 
are  not  yet  understood.” 

Living  in  an  age  when  such  marvels  are  re¬ 
vealed  to  us,  it  is  strange  to  see  scholars  of 
ability  take  a  position  which,  if  reduced  to 
frank  confession,  would  mean,  “  No  matter 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


131 


what  the  evidence  may  be,  the  resurrection  of 
Jesus  is  incredible.”  To  such  we  can  only  re¬ 
ply  in  the  words  of  Paul,  “  Why  should  it  be 
thought  incredible  ?  ”  Why  ?  The  burden  is 
upon  the  one  who  denies. 

It  is  irritating  enough  when  this  attitude  is 
taken  by  some  loose  thinkers,  but  much  more 
annoying  when  scientists  assume  a  like  position. 
Scientists  ought  to  know  better:  they  do  know 
better.  In  some  instances  Science  not  only 
needs  to  be  more  religious,  it  needs  to  be  more 
scientific. 

The  Divine  factor  in  Christian  origins  does 
not  end  with  this  great  event.  We  have  to  face 
another  fact: 

The  Continued  Activity  of  Jesus 

Granted  the  historic  resurrection,  this  is  ex¬ 
actly  what  might  be  expected.  The  Person¬ 
ality  of  Jesus  continued.  Could  it  continue 
without  coming  in  contact  with  the  cause  He 
had  founded,  and  the  community  that  ac¬ 
claimed  Him  Lord?  The  next  great  event  in 
the  life  of  the  Christian  community  was  Pente¬ 
cost.  Again  something  marvellous  happened. 
By  some  special  visitation  of  Divine  power, 


132  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


the  followers  of  Jesus  were  prepared  to  com¬ 
mence  a  campaign  against  a  Christless  world. 
Apparently  the  apostles  had  a  Gospel  to  preach 
apart  from  the  Divine  visitation  of  Pentecost; 
the  latter  furnished  them  with  the  requisite 
power  and  passion.  In  some  way,  which  per¬ 
haps  we  shall  never  be  able  to  explain,  it 
marked  the  coming  of  the  presence  and  power 
of  Christ  into  His  own  Church.  It  was  His 
Holy  Spirit  which  baptized  the  Church.  Pro¬ 
fessor  Bruce  begins  one  of  the  chapters  of  his 
Christian  apologetics  with  these  words,  “  Jesus 
has  for  the  Christian  consciousness  the  re¬ 
ligious  value  of  God.”  “  He  is  the  Lord  Jesus , 
and  as  such  the  object  of  devoted  attachment 
and  reverent  worship.”  13  Could  He  have  for 
us  “  the  religious  value  of  God  ”  if  the  resur¬ 
rection  had  marked  the  termination  of  His 
contact  with  His  Church?  Nearly  two  thou¬ 
sand  years  have  passed  away:  if  the  resurrec¬ 
tion  had  not  been  followed  by  other  direct  per¬ 
sonal  activities  on  His  part,  would  He  not 
have  become  to  us  merely  a  tender  and  beau¬ 
tiful  memory?  His  life  was  gracious  and  ap¬ 
pealing  beyond  compare.  His  resurrection 
validated  His  claims  and  stamped  His  per- 
M  “  Apologetics,”  A.  B.  Bruce,  D.  D.,  p.  398. 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


133 


sonality  with  supreme  spiritual  authority. 
Would  this  have  been  enough? 

Dr.  Mackintosh  writes,  “  Wendt,  who  holds 
no  brief  for  orthodoxy,  has  said  truly  that 
faith  in  Christ  risen  involves  these  four  defi¬ 
nite  propositions:  first,  He  lives  really,  not  in 
the  memory  of  disciples  only;  second,  He  lives 
personally,  not  as  an  entity  now  resolved  into 
its  ultimate  constituents;  third,  He  lives  in 
Heaven,  not  in  the  region  of  the  dead ;  finally. 
He  lives  in  the  fullest  possession  of  blessed¬ 
ness  and  power.”  Then  the  author  proceeds, 
“  An  impressive  type  of  religion  may  no  doubt 
subsist  on  less  than  this,  but  the  typically 
Christian  mind  has  always  felt  that  for  the 
triumphal  discharge  of  her  mission  to  human¬ 
ity  the  Church  depends  on  the  real  presence 
of  her  Lord,  gracious,  omnipotent,  eternal. 
Faith’s  object  must  be  now  and  here.  Past  in¬ 
cidents  may  be  crammed  with  meaning  for  on¬ 
lookers,  but  unless  they  point  to  a  reality  which 
does  not  pass,  and  with  which  we  can  have 
immediate  .  .  .  relations,  they  have  no 

more  importance  for  the  modern  mind  than 
the  notes  of  a  bank  long  since  extinct.”  14  This 

14  “  The  Person  of  Jesus  Christ,”  H.  R.  Mackintosh, 
D.  D.,  pp.  364,  365. 


134  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


quotation  goes  to  the  roots  of  New  Testament 
doctrine  and  life,  and  it  is  abundantly  sus¬ 
tained  by  centuries  of  Christian  experience. 
As  surely  as  our  Lord  predicted  for  Himself 
victory  over  death,  so  surely  did  He  pledge 
His  spiritual  presence  to  His  people  to  the  end 
of  the  ages  (Matt.  28:  20).  Pentecost  was 
the  guarantee  of  the  fulfillment  of  that  pledge. 
He  who  once  gave  Himself  for  His  people 
then  gave  Himself  to  His  people.  There 
quickly  appeared  the  first  forms  of  Christian 
worship.  At  first  the  early  Christians  wor¬ 
shipped  with  their  fellow-countrymen,  accept¬ 
ing  the  ministries  of  the  temple  and  the  syna¬ 
gogue.  It  was  not  long,  however,  before  the 
inevitable  lines  of  cleavage  appeared,  separat¬ 
ing  the  Jew  from  the  Christian.  Devotion  to 
their  risen  and  glorified  Lord  brought  believers 
into  the  closest  and  most  sacred  fellowship. 
They  were  dominated  not  only  by  the  princi¬ 
ple  of  personal  devotion  to  Him,  but  by  the 
sense  of  His  presence.  They  sang  hymns  of 
praise  to  Him,  and  some  fragments  of  these 
verses  can  be  traced  in  the  New  Testament. 
Their  prayers  were  directed  to  Him.  The  dy¬ 
ing  Stephen  beholds  Him  face  to  face,  and 
commits  his  spirit  into  His  gracious  keeping. 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


135 


The  Christian  love-feasts  and  Communion 
services  centred  around  His  holy  presence. 
The  first  day  of  the  week  which  celebrated  His 
resurrection  became  specifically  the  Holy  Day 
of  the  Christian  community,  in  lieu  of  the 
seventh  day,  marked  by  traditional  Hebrew 
usage.  Baptism  was  administered  in  the 
Triune  Name  which  included  His  own,  and  the 
Apostolic  benediction  was  similarly  worded. 
Forgiveness  and  reconciliation  were  mediated 
by  and  realized  in  Him.  With  his  unusual 
spiritual  insight  Dr.  Mackintosh  writes,  “  The 
faith  conveyed  by  Jesus  is  no  mere  abstract 
truth  separable  from  Himself,  as  the  truth  of 
the  law  of  gravitation  is  separable  from  New¬ 
ton.  We  are  able  to  understand  and  use  the 
laws  of  nature  while  totally  ignorant  of  those 
to  whose  research  and  genius  our  knowledge  of 
them  is  due,  but  the  highest  and  purest  faith 
in  God  can  be  attained  in  no  way  but  one;  it 
comes  through  a  believing  response  to  the  per¬ 
son  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  what  we  see  in  Jesus 
that  inspires  a  triumphant  certainty  of  God.”  15 
These  words  are  certainly  an  accurate  descrip¬ 
tion  of  the  faith  and  life  mirrored  on  the  pages 

15 “The  Person  of  Jesus  Christ,”  H.  R.  Mackintosh^ 
D.  D.,  p.  346. 


/ 


136  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


of  the  New  Testament.  All  the  blessings  of 
the  new  Covenant  were  realized  through  Him. 
“  Thanks  be  to  God,  which  giveth  us  the  vic¬ 
tory  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.”  16  The 
teaching  of  the  New  Testament  assumes  that 
the  power,  unmeasured  and  immeasurable,  by 
which  Jesus  was  raised  from  the  dead,  abides 
forever,  as  the  secret  dynamic  of  Christian  ex¬ 
perience;  “  that  ye  may  know  .  .  .  what 

is  the  exceeding  greatness  of  his  power  to  us- 
ward  who  believe,  according  to  the  working 
of  his  mighty  power,  which  he  wrought  in 
Christ  when  he  raised  him  from  the  dead.”  17 
In  effect  Paul  means,  “  I  pray  that  you  may 
come  to  see  more  clearly  the  wonderful  re¬ 
sources  of  Christian  discipleship,  for  you  must 
remember  that  the  very  power  which  raised 
Jesus  from  the  dead  has  not  ceased  to  exist; 
it  is  graciously  directly  toward  us ;  it  comes  to 
us  as  the  sunlight  comes  to  the  flowers,  or  the 
winds  of  heaven  to  the  outspread  sails  of  the 
ship,  and  by  it  we  must  conquer.”  And  by  it 
they  did  conquer.  It  was  for  His  sake  that 
they  suffered.  “  We  which  live  are  alway  de¬ 
livered  unto  death  for  Jesus’  sake.”  18  “  For 

16 1  Cor.  15 : 57.  17  Eph.  1 : 19,  20. 

18 2  Cor.  4:  ti. 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


137 


thy  sake  we  are  killed  all  the  day  long.”  19  The 
early  Christians  did  not  face  their  daily  tor¬ 
tures  and  martyrdoms  for  the  sake  of  a  dogma, 
or  a  ritual,  or  a  code,  or  even  a  Church.  It 
was  for  a  person.  And  by  the  spiritual  fellow¬ 
ship  with  that  person  they  triumphed.  Their 
achievements  were  not  due  to  inherent  will¬ 
power  or  stoical  inflexibility.  “  In  all  these 
things  we  are  more  than  conquerors  through 
him  that  loved  us.”  20  We  cannot  imagine  how 
such  lines  as  these  would  ever  have  been  writ¬ 
ten  if  Jesus  had  been  merely  a  beautiful  mem¬ 
ory  or  a  gracious  personality  far  removed 
from  all  possible  contact  with  those  who  bore 
His  name.  “  Jesus  has  for  the  Christian  con¬ 
sciousness  the  religious  value  of  God.”  He 
certainly  had  that  value  for  the  early  Church. 
By  virtue  of  His  continued  contact  with  His 
people  they  met  and  challenged  a  Christless 
world.  Everything  was  against  them.  That 
they  could  win  against  the  combined  forces  of 
embittered  Judaism,  decadent  Greek  culture, 
and  the  cynical  imperialism  of  Rome  would 
have  seemed  at  that  time  a  wild  and  absurd 
proposition.  It  would  have  been  laughed  out 
of  court.  That  they  won,  that  in  every  great 


18  Rom.  8 :  36. 


20  Rom.  8 :  37. 


138  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


centre  of  the  empire  they  raised  the  banner  of 
the  Cross,  and  in  spite  of  ten  fearful  persecu¬ 
tions,  placed  a  nominal  adherent  of  their  faith 
on  the  throne  of  Nero  and  Domitian,  consti¬ 
tutes  the  greatest  wonder  of  history.  If  un¬ 
belief  is  still  determined  to  deny  the  resurrec¬ 
tion  of  Jesus  and  refuses  to  admit  His  con¬ 
tinued  presence  in  His  Church,  it  must  explain 
this  unique  series  of  events.  Its  explanation 
must  be  reasonable,  and  must  be  rigidly  kept 
within  the  realm  of  fact.  In  all  the  ranks  of 
scepticism,  who  will  be  brave  enough  to  essay 
the  task? 

The  Divine  element  in  the  life  of  the  early 
Church  is  vividly  revealed  in 

The  Conversion  of  Saul  of  Tarsus 

Every  true  conversion  is  a  Divine  experi¬ 
ence.  It  takes  us  into  a  realm  where  the  mas¬ 
ters  of  history,  psychology  and  sociology  throw 
up  their  hands.  They  find  themselves  drop¬ 
ping  their  plummets  into  unfathomable  waters. 
If  we  make  much  of  the  conversion  of  Saul  of 
Tarsus  it  is  with  no  intention  of  belittling  any 
other  conversion.  We  emphasize  this  particu¬ 
lar  case  because  it  is  marked  by  special  features 
which  compel  the  attention  of  a  sceptical  mind. 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


139 


Saul  was  a  scholar,  a  thinker,  a  rabid  and  in¬ 
tense  Jewish  religionist,  and  an  avowed  enemy 
of  the  whole  Christian  movement.  In  study¬ 
ing  this  man  we  need  have  no  fear  concerning 
the  safety  of  the  historical  ground  on  which  we 
stand.  Even  so  radical  a  thinker  as  Hamack 
refers  to  him  as  “  the  most  luminous  person¬ 
ality  in  the  history  of  primitive  Christianity.”  21 
Dr.  George  Milligan  truly  says,  “  The  day  has 
happily  gone  by  when  the  authenticity  of  by 
far  the  greater  part  of  the  Pauline  Epistles  can 
be  seriously  attacked  ” therefore  criticism 
can  lodge  no  protest  when  we  quote  from  his 
own  writings. 

Can  imagination  portray  a  character  less 
likely  to  be  impelled  by  natural  taste  and  mo¬ 
tive  toward  the  Christian  Faith?  Every  fibre 
of  his  being  was  arrayed  against  it.  He  was 
a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews,  a  Pharisee  of  the 
Pharisees,  the  champion  of  an  ancient  and 
newly-challenged  system.  He  believed  that  a 
triumphant  Christianity  would  spell  the  doom 
of  Hebraism.  He  would  tolerate  no  half¬ 
measures,  and  had  only  loathing  for  compro¬ 
mises.  He  was  a  “  root  and  branch  ”  man. 
Far  more  than  Lord  Strafford  of  the  Stuart 

21  “  Religion  and  the  Modern  World,”  p.  233. 


140  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


days  did  he  deserve  the  title  of  “  Thorough.” 
It  is  almost  certain  that  he  was  a  member  of 
the  Sanhedrin,  and  from  that  place  of  power 
he  hurled  the  full  weight  of  his  influence  upon 
the  side  of  the  policy  directed  toward  the  ex¬ 
termination  of  the  hated  sect.  This  may  be 
safely  inferred  from  his  confession  before 
Agrippa:  “  When  they  were  put  to  death  I 
gave  my  voice  (or  vote)  against  them.”  23  On 
this  verse  Bishop  Ellicott,  a  most  cautious  ex¬ 
positor,  says,  “  He  must  have  been  a  member 
either  of  the  Sanhedrin  itself,  or  of  some 
tribunal  with  delegated  authority.”  In  either 
case  all  his  official  influence  was  linked  to  his 
personal  animus  in  a  merciless  campaign 
against  the  early  believers.  In  the  same  ad¬ 
dress  before  Agrippa  he  freely  confessed  the 
mood  in  which  he  followed  up  his  work  of 
persecution.  He  was  “  exceedingly  mad 
against  them  ”  and  “  persecuted  them  even 
unto  strange  cities.”  His  attitude  was  one  of 
unreasoning  and  deadly  hate.  It  was  not 
enough  that  the  believers  were  scattered  before 
his  crusade  as  the  leaves  are  scattered  by  au¬ 
tumn’s  blast.  He  followed  them  up.  No 
bloodhound  on  the  scent  was  ever  more  per- 


22  Acts  26 : 10. 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


141 


sistent  or  merciless  in  its  hunt  than  was  Saul. 
Armed  with  legal  authority  he  set  out  for 
Damascus  with  a  small  group  of  associates 
impelled  by  a  similar  temper.  It  really  seems 
as  though  the  whole  future  of  the  Christian 
movement  was  then  at  stake.  With  the  vast 
network  of  hostile  power  which  Saul  and  his 
colleagues  could  control,  the  total  destruction 
of  the  Christians  was  theoretically  possible. 

Was  this  movement  to  be  annihilated  in  its 
infancy?  If  exceptional  divine  power  was  ex¬ 
ercised  to  raise  Jesus  from  the  dead,  why 
should  it  not  be  exercised  to  save  the  cause 
which  He  founded?  Destinies  wide  as  the 
world,  and  enduring  as  time  itself,  were  hang¬ 
ing  in  the  balance.  Again  something  wonder¬ 
ful  happened.  Saul  of  Tarsus  left  Jerusalem 
a  raging  persecutor;  he  entered  Damascus  a 
few  hours  later  as  a  humble  Christian  in¬ 
quirer. 

The  story  of  his  conversion  is  told  three 
times  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  with  only 
slight  variations.  The  three  narratives  agree 
that  his  conversion  was  due  to  a  direct  and 
personal  vision  of  Christ.  He  saw  Him,  heard 
Him  speak,  and  even  conversed  with  Him. 
Whatever  may  be  the  explanation  advanced 


142  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


by  scepticism  there  can  be  no  question  of 
Paul’s  own  version.  Unless  words  are  to  be 
stripped  of  their  obvious  meaning  St.  Paul’s 
assertions  compel  us  to  believe  that,  in  his  own 
judgment,  he  actually  came  into  objective  con¬ 
tact  with  the  glorified  person  of  Christ.  Twice 
in  his  first  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  he  claims 
that  he  had  seen  Christ.  “  Have  I  not  seen 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord?”  “  Last  of  all  he 
was  seen  of  me  also.”  23  Twice  he  declares  that 
he  “  heard  the  voice.”  Subjective  illusions  are 
not  accompanied  by  the  voice  of  the  one  whose 
presence  has  no  objective  reality.  Paul  ought 
to  be  allowed  to  know  something  about  his  own 
conversion.  Even  King  Agrippa  granted  him 
that  privilege  :  “  Thou  art  permitted  to  speak 
for  thyself.”  24  Surely  the  unbeliever  of  to¬ 
day  ought  to  be  as  fair  as  was  Agrippa. 

If  ever  there  was  a  great  thinker  who  was  es¬ 
sentially  sane,  free  from  fads,  morbid  emo¬ 
tions,  habitual  introspection,  and  odd  fancies, 
it  was  St.  Paul.  All  the  vast  and  varied  gifts 
of  his  intellect,  his  imagination  and  his  affec¬ 
tions  were  concentrated  upon  a  cause.  All  the 
undivided  currents  of  his  being  worked  ob¬ 
jectively.  He  travelled  from  city  to  city,  from 

28 1  Cor.  9 :  i. 


24  x  Cor.  15 : 8. 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


143 


village  to  village,  from  province  to  province, 
from  continent  to  continent,  declaring  the 
Evangel,  exposing  the  needs  and  bankruptcies 
of  a  pagan  civilization,  combating  error, 
founding  churches,  ordaining  officers,  writing 
letters  which  have  become  immortal  literature, 
and  glorifying  his  Lord  by  the  dedication  of 
all  his  powers  to  Him. 

To  what  part  of  St.  Paul’s  life  and  labours 
can  we  turn  in  quest  of  the  fantastic  or  the 
morbid?  Why  should  unbelief  assume  that  a 
man  with  such  a  healthy  type  of  mind  was 
radically  mistaken  concerning  the  greatest 
event  in  his  own  career?  Is  not  such  an  atti¬ 
tude  marked  by  impertinence?  Every  one 
must  admit  the  fact  of  Paul’s  conversion.  He 
was  at  one  time  a  persecutor  and  a  blasphemer ; 
later  he  became  an  apostle  and  a  martyr  to  the 
faith.  Everybody  must  also  admit  that  his 
conversion  was  sudden.  What  produced  it? 
Obviously  it  was  not  brought  about  by  some 
extraordinary  sermon  to  which  he  listened; 
nor  by  some  argument  with  an  apostle ;  nor  by 
some  lengthy  period  of  unprejudiced  medita¬ 
tion  and  search.  It  is  easy  enough  for  unbe¬ 
lief  to  resort  to  such  a  phrase  as  “  subjective 
illusion.”  Did  his  companions  also  suffer  from 


144  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


an  illusion?  Sharing  the  anti-Christian  preju¬ 
dices  which  he  cherished  before  his  conversion, 
they  would  have  had  every  motive  for  im¬ 
peaching  his  testimony  and  exposing  him  to 
Jewish  ridicule,  had  not  his  experience  been 
based  upon  an  objective  reality.  Unbelief 
must  explain  how  some  freak  of  fancy  could 
leave  a  man  almost,  if  not  totally,  blind  for 
several  days.  The  admitted  fact  of  his  phys¬ 
ical  blindness  is  a  tremendous  confirmation  of 
the  truth  of  his  own  claim,  “  Last  of  all  he 
was  seen  of  me  also.”  Through  all  the  long 
years  of  his  glorious  apostleship  Paul  never 
withdrew  that  claim. 

I  have  ventured  to  present  the  Divine  ele¬ 
ments  in  Christian  origins  as  a  valid,  and  I 
believe  unanswerable,  credential  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Faith.  If  unbelief  sweeps  this  credential 
aside  as  inadequate  it  must  be  consistent.  The 
credential  does  not  dwell  in  the  region  of  ab¬ 
stract  thought.  It  is  not  woven  out  of  meta¬ 
physical  threads.  It  is  not  an  outgrowth  of 
mysticism.  It  is  rooted  in  historical  facts. 
Unbelief  must  therefore  account  for  the  con¬ 
viction  of  the  resurrection;  for  the  mighty 
spiritual  phenomena  evidenced  by  the  early 
Church,  and  for  the  conversion  of  Saul  of 


THE  DIVINE  ELEMENT 


145 


Tarsus.  In  all  the  ranks  of  unbelief  what 
man  can  be  found  who  is  willing  to  undertake 
the  task? 

About  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century 
two  able  and  noted  free-thinkers  decided  that 
the  time  had  come  to  dispose  of  the  Christian 
Faith.  Both  Gilbert  West  and  Lord  Lyttleton 
agreed  that  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  and  the 
conversion  of  St.  Paul  were  two  main  founda¬ 
tions  on  which  the  Christian  structure  was 
built.  Mr.  West  undertook  the  task  of  dis¬ 
proving  the  resurrection,  and  Lord  Lyttleton 
agreed  to  prove  that  the  alleged  Divine  element 
in  the  conversion  of  St.  Paul  had  no  basis  in 
fact.  Both  men  worked  hard  at  their  tasks. 
They  were  educated,  literary,  critical  and  fear¬ 
less.  As  a  result  of  their  close  and  con¬ 
scientious  studies  both  men  became  convinced 
of  the  veracity  of  the  records  which  they  had 
undertaken  to  destroy,  both  became  converts 
to  the  Christian  Faith,  and  both  became  com¬ 
municants  of  the  Church.  Dr.  Johnson  de¬ 
clared  that  Lord  Lyttleton’s  subsequent  work 
on  the  conversion  of  St.  Paul  was  one  “  to 
which  infidelity  has  never  been  able  to  furnish 
a  specious  answer.” 

It  is  easy  to  misunderstand  and  even  pervert 


146  15  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


the  purpose  of  this  chapter.  The  argument 
may  be  discounted  by  being  made  to  appear 
as  though  it  were  based  only  upon  a  Divine 
presence  found  in  gaps  and  chasms.  The  fact 
is  if  we  can  find  God  anywhere  we  have  a  very 
good  chance  of  finding  Him  everywhere. 
These  pages  are  specially  addressed  to  those 
who  admit  that  they  cannot  find  a  basis  of 
faith  anywhere.  Our  answer  is  that  at  least 
there  is  a  Divine  element  here,  and  here,  and 
here.  With  that  rare  combination  of  scholar¬ 
ship  and  spiritual  insight  which  marks  his 
works  Dr.  Cadman  writes  in  reference  to  a 
type  of  religious  teaching  which  is  passing 
away:  “  The  tokens  of  God’s  presence  in  His 
own  world  were  too  frequently  found  in  those 
apparent  breaches  of  His  continuous  adminis^ 
tration  which  were  magnified  as  miraculous.”  25 
It  is  not  my  intention  to  place  myself  where 
this  valid  criticism  may  fall  upon  me,  but  the 
distinguished  writer  would  be  among  the  first 
to  admit  that  one  of  the  surest  ways  of  finding 
God’s  “  continuous  administration  ”  is  by  the 
discovery  of  His  unmistakable  presence  and 
power  in  the  origins  of  Christianity.  We  find 
God  everywhere  by  first  finding  Him  some¬ 
where. 

25  “  Ambassadors  of  God,”  S.  Parkes  Cadman,  D.  D., 

p.  174. 


V 


THE  TRUTH  OF  PERSONAL 
EXPERIENCE 

A  REMARKABLE  story  is  told  in  the 
fourth  chapter  of  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles :  There  is  every  reason  to  be¬ 
lieve  that,  with  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus,  His 
enemies  assumed  that  His  cause  was  destroyed. 
His  apostles  had  fled,  and  apparently  the  early 
community  of  Jesus  had  disbanded.  Nothing 
seemed  to  be  left  as  a  nucleus  around  which 
the  cause  could  rally.  The  Jewish  authorities 
prided  themselves  upon  their  knowledge  of 
public  sentiment,  and  nothing  could  have  in¬ 
duced  them  to  believe  that  a  crucified  Nazarene 
could  ever  gain  a  following  as  the  chosen  Mes¬ 
siah.  We  can  readily  understand  how 
Caiaphas  and  his  colleagues  congratulated 
themselves  at  the  close  of  the  first  Good  Fri¬ 
day.  Everything  seemed  to  be  settled.  Jesus 
had  lost.  The  excitement  would  soon  be  over. 
Things  would  quickly  return  to  normal  type 
and  usual  experience.  The  vested  interests  of 

i47 


148  THE  CHRISTIAN^ CREDENTIALS 

the  Sanhedrin  would  be  entrenched  more 
firmly  than  ever.  Such  must  have  been  the 
thoughts  of  the  Jewish  leaders  as  the  sun  of 
that  day  was  setting.  What  else  could  they 
think  ? 

They  were  quickly  undeceived.  Within  a 
few  weeks  the  name  of  the  Galilean  received 
a  new  significance.  There  was  a  wonderful 
rallying  of  His  former  following.  A  few 
handfuls  of  apparently  dead  ashes  were  seen 
to  leap  into  flames.  Popular  imagination  was 
thrilled,  and  the  springs  of  religious  feeling 
were  stirred.  Signs  and  wonders  were 
wrought  in  His  name.  In  the  course  of  a  few 
hours  three  thousand  Jews  were  baptized  into 
the  name  of  the  One  whom  the  Jewish  Church 
had  put  to  death  as  a  blasphemer.  Had  such 
a  fact  been  predicted  on  the  day  of  the  cruci¬ 
fixion  it  would  have  been  greeted  by  the  fore¬ 
most  enemies  of  Jesus  with  utter  derision. 
The  shrewdest  member  of  the  Sanhedrin  was 
now  unable  to  forecast  the  development  of 
events.  Anything  might  happen.  In  any 
event  further  conflict  was  certain.  Having 
gone  so  far  the  Sanhedrin  must  now  go  fur¬ 
ther.  A  clash  of  forces  was  inevitable.  Some¬ 
times  great  events  are  heralded  by  small  ones. 


TRUTH  OF  PERSONAL  EXPERIENCE  149 


There  is  a  popular  saying  in  India,  “  When 
men  are  ripe  for  destruction,  even  straws  turn 
into  thunderbolts.”  A  violent  storm  may  be 
heralded  by  a  slight  rustling  of  the  leaves.  A 
spark  may  mean  an  explosion. 

For  months,  perhaps  for  years,  a  wretched 
cripple  had  crouched  beside  the  Temple  gate, 
living  upon  the  charity  of  those  that  passed  by. 
He  had  settled  down  into  the  despair  of  the 
helpless.  Peter  and  John  became  the  instru¬ 
ments  of  his  recovery.  Health  surged  through 
the  man’s  weakened  and  blemished  body.  He 
began  a  new  life.  He  who  had  been  a  help¬ 
less  wreck  now  rejoiced  in  abundant  health 
and  physical  freedom.  He  could  not  only  walk 
but  leap.  The  people  “  were  filled  with  wonder 
and  amazement.”  The  cure  had  not  been 
wrought  by  clever  surgical  skill,  but  “  in  the 
name  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth.”  It  would 
be  difficult  to  believe  that  any  member  of  the 
Sanhedrin  would  be  prejudiced  against  the 
healing  of  a  sick  man,  but  when  that  cure  was 
effected  “  in  the  name  ”  of  the  One  who  had 
been  crucified  by  authority  of  the  council,  the 
matter  assumed  a  new  significance.  The  San- 
hedrin  objected  very  strenuously  to  any  such 
procedure.  For  Peter  had  not  failed  to  make 


150  -  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 

b 

the  event  a  text  for  a  powerful  sermon.  The 
manifestation  of  Divine  power  through  the 
name  of  Jesus  was  presented  by  Peter  as  an 
appeal  for  the  whole  Christian  claim.  If  Jesus 
had  never  been  raised  from  the  dead,  this  lame 
man  would  never  have  been  healed .  That  is 
the  substance  of  Peter’s  argument.  The  ene¬ 
mies  of  Jesus  were  furious.  They  said  in  ef¬ 
fect,  “  This  will  never  do.”  So  they  took  ac¬ 
tion.  The  apostles  were  imprisoned,  and  on 
the  following  day  they  were  brought  into 
court.  Their  authority  was  challenged,  and 
the  challenge  was  promptly  accepted.  No  long 
argument  was  presented.  No  elaborate  dogma 
was  announced.  The  issue  was  clearly  and 
quickly  defined.  “  By  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ  of  Nazareth  whom  ye  crucified,  whom 
God  raised  from  the  dead,  even  by  him  doth 
this  man  stand  here  before  you  whole.”  What 
could  the  Jewish  authorities  do?  They  surely 
could  not  persecute  these  men  for  bringing 
health  and  strength  to  a  lame  man.  That 
would  have  involved  insult  to  every  worthy 
instinct  of  human  nature.  But  they  were 
equally  determined  not  to  allow  such  an  act  to 
be  presented  to  the  public  as  an  evidence  of  the 
power  of  the  Risen  Christ.  Yet  what  could 


TRUTH  OF  PERSONAL  EXPERIENCE  151 


they  do  ?  “  Beholding  the  man  that  was  healed 
standing  with  them,  they  could  say  nothing 
against  it.”  There  stood  the  man.  It  was  the 
same  man.  They  knew  that  he  was  the  same 
man,  and  they  also  knew  that  the  people  knew 
it.  To  have  tried  to  prove  that  this  was  a  case 
of  mistaken  identity  or  clever  impersonation 
would  have  been  silly,  and  Caiaphas  and  his 
group  would  only  have  weakened  their  own 
case  by  such  an  argument.  And  the  man  was 
“  standing.”  The  cure  was  beyond  all  cavil 
or  question.  The  Sanhedrin  was  not  con¬ 
fronted  by  a  heresy,  or  a  tradition,  or  a  creed, 
or  a  dream.  “  Beholding  the  man.”  They 
were  face  to  face  with  a  living  fact,  and  “  they 
could  say  nothing  against  it.” 

Here  we  have  the  first  reported  clash  be¬ 
tween  the  enemies  and  the  followers  of  Jesus. 
It  is  a  significant  fact  that  this  battle  was 
fought  upon  a  matter  of  personal  experience. 
Something  had  taken  place  in  the  actual  life 
of  this  man  which  was  beyond  question  or  de¬ 
bate.  Not  all  the  arguments  which  mortal 
mind  can  formulate  could  have  persuaded  the 
man  that  nothing  had  happened  to  him,  and 
that  his  condition  was  just  exactly  the  same 
as  it  had  been  through  the  preceding  years. 


152  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


He  was  a  changed  man,  and  the  reality  of  the 
change  was  a  matter  of  consciousness.  Now 
the  verdict  of  consciousness  is  final:  no  man 
can  go  beyond  its  findings.  The  man  knew. 
When  placed  before  a  fact  of  consciousness 
the  mightiest  argument  is  futile,  even  if  it  be 
as  massive  as  a  Gibraltar  Rock,  or  as  delicate 
as  a  spider’s  web. 

The  enemies  of  Christ  “  could  say  nothing 
against  it.”  Later  they  admitted  “  we  cannot 
deny  it.”  They  were  face  to  face  with  an  un¬ 
answerable  argument.  The  argument  from 
Christian  experience  has  never  been  answered. 
There  is  something  prophetic  in  this  early 
Christian  narrative.  Apparently  the  enemies 
of  the  Cross  felt  that  prophetic  element.  The 
policy  of  threat  and  terror  to  which  they  re¬ 
sorted  was  prompted  by  a  practical  view  of 
things.  “  But  that  it  spread  no  further  among 
the  people,  let  us  straitly  threaten  them.” 
They  saw  plainly  enough  that  if  this  lame  man 
could  be  healed  so  wonderfully,  other  and 
greater  things  might  happen. 

And  much  greater  things  have  happened. 
For  nearly  twenty  centuries  the  Christian 
Faith  has  been  working  in  the  lives  of  men  and 
women.  It  has  opened  the  doors  of  spiritual 


TRUTH  OF  PERSONAL  EXPERIENCE  153 


bondage.  It  has  broken  the  chains  of  evil 
habit.  It  has  kindled  joy  in  darkened  and  dis¬ 
couraged  souls.  It  has  changed  human  mo¬ 
tives.  It  has  reversed  the  whole  drift  and  pur¬ 
pose  of  countless  lives.  It  has  made  weak  men 
strong,  profane  men  devout,  proud  men  hum¬ 
ble,  violent  men  tranquil.  It  has  produced  re¬ 
sults.  It  has  lifted  men  and  women  up  to 
heights  of  goodness  which  none  of  the  follow¬ 
ers  of  other  religions  or  cults  have  ever  been 
able  to  attain.  The  Christian  Faith  has 
wrought  as  a  dynamic  in  the  realm  of  personal 
relations.  It  has  always  meant  more  than  cul¬ 
ture  or  ethics.  It  has  conferred  power.  The 
man  who  accepts  the  religion  of  the  Cross  feels 
himself  under  an  unmeasured  obligation. 
Self-interest  is  dethroned;  self-gratification  is 
abandoned;  self-seeking  is  ended.  He  regards 
life  itself  as  the  possession  of  his  Lord.  A 
new  and  wonderful  power  enters  his  being. 
He  feels  himself  uplifted  into  new  relations: 
“  Old  things  have  passed  away  and  behold  all 
things  are  become  new.”  Other  great  religions 
furnish  no  parallel  to  this  element  of  personal 
experience.  Ethical  systems  and  codes  of  con¬ 
duct  uninspired  by  the  Resurrection  do  not  be¬ 
long  to  the  same  category  of  spiritual  values., 


154  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


Christianity  furnishes  an  unanswerable  ere- 
dential  in  personal  experience. 

Several  illustrations  of  this  truth  may  not  be 
out  of  place. 

Nearly  four  hundred  years  after  the  birth 
of  Christ  a  remarkable  young  man  might  have 
been  seen  walking  the  streets  of  Milan.  He 
was  about  thirty- three  years  of  age.  He  was 
born  in  Numidia  in  Northern  Africa.  His 
father  had  spent  most  of  his  life  as  a  Pagan, 
while  his  mother  was  one  of  the  most  devout 
of  the  early  Christians.  This  young  man  had 
been  trained  by  his  mother  in  the  truths  of  the 
Christian  faith,  but  he  was  headstrong,  im¬ 
petuous  and  wilful,  and  rejected  all  the  re¬ 
straints  of  his  mother’s  faith.  Before  he  had 
passed  through  his  teens  he  had  plunged  into 
nearly  every  form  of  vicious  conduct.  He  ac¬ 
cuses  himself  of  giving  full  rein  to  every  evil 
passion.  He  wallowed  in  the  worst  excesses. 
His  dissipations,  however,  were  unable  to  ar¬ 
rest  the  .workings  of  his  restless  mind.  He 
wandered  through  the  vagaries  of  Manicheism, 
but  found  no  final  satisfaction  therein.  After 
some  time  he  moved  forward  into  sounder 
philosophical  studies  and  became  a  lecturer  on 
rhetoric  at  Tagaste  and  then  at  Carthage.  His 


TRUTH  OF  PERSONAL  EXPERIENCE  155 


later  sojourn  at  Rome  was  marked  by  disap¬ 
pointments,  and  from  Rome  he  journeyed  to 
Milan. 

At  this  time  the  one  outstanding  personality 
of  the  northern  city  of  Italy  was  Bishop  Am¬ 
brose.  He  was  a  saint,  a  scholar,  a  powerful 
preacher  and  a  fearless  champion  of  the  Faith. 
He  dared  to  withhold  the  Holy  Communion 
from  the  great  Emperor  Theodosius  as  a  spir¬ 
itual  penalty  for  the  massacre  of  his  people  in 
Thessalonica.  Clad  in  the  robes  of  a  penitent 
the  mighty  emperor  bowed  in  shame  for  days 
in  Milan  Cathedral,  wincing  beneath  the  flam¬ 
ing  judgments  of  God  as  they  were  pro¬ 
nounced  by  the  courageous  Bishop.  To  that 
same  Cathedral  the  dissolute  Augustine 
wended  his  way.  His  motive  was  merely 
professional.  He  desired  to  study  the  preach¬ 
er’s  style;  his  voice,  his  manner,  his  rhetoric. 
For  the  substance  of  the  Bishop’s  preaching 
Augustine  did  not  care.  Later,  however,  the 
truth  laid  hold  of  him ;  he  forgot  the  preacher’s 
style  in  his  message.  The  holiness  of  God,  the 
guilt  of  sin,  the  shame  of  the  sinner  when  con¬ 
fronted  by  the  standards  of  holiness,  the  mercy 
of  God  in  Christ,  life  as  it  could  be  lived  under 
the  Lord^iip  of  Jesus- — these  were  the  truths 


156  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


that  shook  the  man’s  being,  as  the  leaf  is 
shaken  by  the  wind.  This  was  no  ignorant, 
excitable  or  emotional  man;  he  was  one  of  the 
great  thinkers  and  administrators  of  history. 
The  climax  of  the  story  can  be  told  in  his  own 
words  taken  from  his  book  “  The  Confes¬ 
sions.”  “  I  cast  myself  down,  I  know  not  how, 
under  a  fig-tree,  giving  full  vent  to  my  tears 
.  .  .  not  indeed  in  these  words,  yet  to  this 

purpose,  spake  I  much  unto  Thee: — And 
Thou,  O  Lord,  how  long?  How  long,  Lord, 
wilt  Thou  be  angry — forever  ?  Remember  not 
our  former  iniquities.  How  long?  How 
long?  To-morrow  and  to-morrow?  Why  not 
now?  Why  is  there  not  at  this  hour  an  end 
to  my  wickedness  ?  ” 

Then  while  weeping  in  bitter  contrition  he 
seemed  to  hear  a  voice  repeating  the  words, 
“Take  up  and  read;  take  up  and  read.”  He 
returned  to  the  room  where  his  friend  Alypius 
was  sitting:  “  For  there  had  I  laid  the  volume 
of  the  Epistles.  I  seized,  opened  and  in  silence 
read  that  section  on  which  my  eyes  first  fell: 
Not  in  rioting  and  drunkenness,  not  in  cham¬ 
bering  and  wantonness,  not  in  strife  and  envy¬ 
ing,  but  put  ye  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and 
make  not  provision  for  the  flesh,  to  fulfill  the 


TKUTH  OF  PERSONAL  EXPERIENCE  157 


lusts  thereof.”  He  tells  us  later,  “  I  did  not 
need  to  read  further.”  That  was  the  hour  of 
Augustine’s  conversion.  Something  wonder¬ 
ful  happened.  The  whole  quality  of  the  man’s 
life  was  changed.  The  things  which  he  had 
formerly  loved  he  henceforth  hated ;  the  things 
he  had  formerly  hated  he  henceforth  loved. 
The  whole  of  his  subsequent  life  was  a  direct 
antithesis  of  his  preceding  life.  He  stands 
forth  on  the  pages  of  history  as  one  of  the 
greatest  men  the  world  has  ever  known,  and 
one  of  the  saintliest,  yet  at  thirty-two  years  of 
age  Augustine  was  a  moral  wreck.  It  fell  to 
him,  more  than  to  any  other  man,  to  guide  the 
forces  and  fortunes  of  the  Christian  Church 
during  those  strategic  days  when  the  Roman 
Empire  was  crashing  into  ruins.  Great  as  a 
theologian,  as  a  spiritual  leader,  as  a  thinker, 
as  an  administrator,  Augustine  was  perhaps 
greatest  of  all  as  a  saint,  and  to-day  millions 
of  Christians  bow  in  reverent  thought  before 
the  record  of  his  Christian  experience. 

The  religion  of  the  Resurrection  works! 
Could  any  man,  or  group  of  men,  have  pre¬ 
sented  any  argument  against  the  Christian  re¬ 
ligion  which  could  have  shaken  the  faith  of 
Augustine?  Had  such  an  argument  been  ad- 


158  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


dressed  to  him,  what  would  have  been  his  re¬ 
ply?  The  substance  of  it  would  have  been 
this,  “  It  would  be  easier  to  doubt  the  reality 
of  the  sun  that  shines,  or  the  winds  that  blow, 
than  to  doubt  what  is  profoundest  in  my  own 
being;  for  my  faith  rests  not  upon  an  argu¬ 
ment,  nor  a  dogma,  nor  even  upon  the  testi¬ 
mony  of  the  most  reliable  witnesses,  but  upon 
a  personal  experience  which  is  an  integral  part 
of  myself.”  How  could  Augustine,  with  his 
experience,  have  said  anything  else  ? 

The  scene  of  the  following  case  is  laid  in 
England.  The  neighbourhood  is  marked  by  a 
Roman  road,  while  the  little  hill  where 
Caractacus  made  his  last  stand  against  the 
Romans  looms  up  in  the  distance.  Quaint 
touches  of  medievalism  rest  upon  the  whole 
countryside.  We  see  a  young  man  of  excep¬ 
tional  physique;  tall,  powerful,  with  closely- 
knit  frame,  and  a  face  indicating  strength  of 
will  and  reserves  of  passion.  He  is  unable  to 
sign  his  name,  or  even  repeat  the  letters  of 
the  alphabet.  His  well-developed  strength  and 
agility  have  qualified  him  to  take  rank  as  the 
most  popular  boxer  in  the  neighbourhood.  He 
is  a  hard  drinker,  and  in  certain  stages  of  in¬ 
toxication  he  is  a  terror  to  the  community. 


TEUTH  OF  PERSONAL  EXPERIENCE  159 


His  drunken  excesses  have  left  his  little  home 
without  comfort,  and  his  young  wife  and  little 
child  are  sometimes  on  the  verge  of  starvation. 
One  Sunday  evening  some  one  dares  him  to 
go  into  a  cottage  where  the  Methodist  services 
were  held.  He  accepts  the  dare,  and  attends 
the  service.  He  went  in  the  spirit  of  defiance, 
if  not  blasphemy.  His  inmost  soul,  however, 
was  gripped  by  something  in  that  simple  serv¬ 
ice.  And  how  simple  it  was!  There  was  no 
trained  choir,  no  impressive  organ,  no  stately 
ritual,  no  artistic  appeal.  There  was  indeed 
nothing,  except  the  Gospel.  But  underneath 
the  simple  and  unlettered  statement  of  that 
Gospel  the  man  winced  and  trembled.  He 
started  for  the  door,  but  returned  to  his  seat. 
At  the  close  of  the  service  kindly  hands  were 
stretched  out  toward  him,  and  loving  voices 
appealed  to  him  to  leave  the  ways  of  sin.  He 
was  urged  to  repent  and  seek  the  Divine  for¬ 
giveness.  He  broke  with  his  past,  utterly  and 
permanently.  He  could  only  kneel  and  pray, 
“  God  be  merciful  to  me,  a  sinner.”  Again  it 
was  a  case  of  something  happening.  The 
young  man  left  that  room  changed  in  his  in¬ 
most  tastes,  motives  and  intentions.  For  him 
there  were  no  more  carousings,  no  more  Bed- 


160  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


lams.  Going  to  his  miserable  home  he  tenderly 
kissed  his  wife  and  child,  saying,  “  God  has 
forgiven  me  and  you  must  forgive  me,  too.” 
On  the  next  day  at  the  evening  meal  he  said  to 
his  child,  “  Little  one,  will  you  do  something 
for  me,  and  will  you  do  it  every  day  ?  ”  The 
child  answered,  “  Yes,  Daddy,  if  I  can.”  He 
continued,  “  Well,  you  go  to  school  every  day; 
you  can  read ;  will  you  teach  me  to  read  ?  ” 
She  gladly  promised,  thus  becoming  the  man’s 
first  teacher.  Under  her  instruction  he  learned 
to  read,  and  daily  he  might  have  been  seen 
carrying  a  small  book  with  him  as  he  travelled 
back  and  forth  over  his  master’s  farm.  He 
became  steeped  in  the  literature  of  the  Bible 
and  a  few  of  the  best  books.  In  the  little 
Methodist  church  of  that  village  he  became 
one  of  the  leaders.  Later  he  became  a  lay- 
preacher  of  remarkable  power,  and  Sunday 
after  Sunday  he  trudged  many  weary  miles  to 
proclaim  the  Evangel  in  some  of  the  outlying 
villages  of  England.  He  stood  as  a  rock 
against  the  intemperance,  profanity  and  Sab¬ 
bath-desecration  of  the  neighbourhood,  and 
no  man  within  a  radius  of  fifty  miles  received 
greater  respect.  He  was  a  great  spiritual  hero. 

Here  is  a  vivid  instance  of  personal  experi- 


TRUTH  OF  PERSONAL  EXPERIENCE  161 


ence.  Religion  verifies  itself  by  its  fruitage. 
Suppose  some  one  had  gone  to  this  man, 
Thomas  Gough,  and  had  presented  the  views 
of  modern  unbelief !  Suppose  the  sceptic  had 
said,  “  It  is  ail  tincertain,  there  are  serious 
doubts  about  the  reality  of  it  all :  indeed  it  may 
be  an  illusion.”  What  would  have  happened? 
The  man  would  have  answered,  “  But  I  know; 
I  know  that  something  wonderful  happened  to< 
me,  and  that  the  very  truths  of  the  Bible  which 
you  doubt  have  brought  power  and  victory  to 
my  life.  If  I  do  not  know  that,  then  I  know 
nothing ,  and  there  is  no  such  thing  as  know¬ 
ledge.” 

Knowing  that  man  as  I  did  I  am  confident 
that  no  argument  could  ever  have  shaken  his 
assurance  of  the  reality  of  Christian  truth,  be¬ 
cause  that  truth  had  verified  itself  in  his  own 
experience. 

In  the  English  Midlands  there  may  be  found 
an  interesting  village  of  some  three  thousand 
inhabitants.  It  has  several  small  factories, 
mills,  and  a  considerable  canal  traffic.  For 
many  years  it  had  been  known  far  and  wide 
as  one  of  the  most  drunken  villages  in  Eng¬ 
land.  Its  religious  life  was  at  a  low  ebb.  An 
evangelical  church  in  the  neighbouring  city  de- 


162  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


cided  to  open  a  mission  in  its  midst,  and  call 
the  people  to  Christian  repentance.  A  young 
minister,  accompanied  by  three  lay-colleagues, 
stood  on  the  village  green,  sang  hymns,  offered 
prayer,  and  addressed  the  small  company  that 
gathered  around  them.  One  young  woman 
was  impressed  by  the  appeal  and  invited  the 
preacher  to  visit  her  family.  There  he  found 
the  father,  the  mother,  and  a  grown-up  family 
of  four  sons  and  daughters.  Drink  had 
wrought  havoc  in  the  home,  and  the  family 
life  was  marked  by  the  evident  tokens  of  un¬ 
godliness.  Within  one  year  a  great  change 
was  manifest.  Again  something  happened. 
The  whole  family  made  a  profession  of  the 
Christian  Faith.  Drink  was  given  up.  Family 
prayer  was  observed.  A  devout  and  reverent 
spirit  dominated  the  home.  Life  was  dedi¬ 
cated  to  new  ideals,  and  shone  with  a  new 
splendour.  The  habits  and  interests  of  the 
past  were  entirely  abandoned,  new  and  differ¬ 
ent  pursuits  were  followed. 

Suppose  any  one  had  challenged  the  truth¬ 
fulness  of  the  Christian  religion  in  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  that  family!  Such  a  challenge  would 
have  seemed  utterly  wild.  Immediately  these 
people  would  have  said,  “  But  we  have  an  ex- 


TRUTH  OF  PERSONAL  EXPERIENCE  163 


perience  which  is  as  real  to  us  as  our  own 
existence.  We  know  what  we  were;  we  know 
what  we  now  are!  What  changed  us?”  In 
vain  would  unbelief  battle  with  such  an  experi¬ 
ence  as  they  possessed. 

These  are  only  isolated  statements  of  a 
Christian  experience  which  has  been  shared  by 
millions.  There  are  external  variations  in  this 
experience.  Not  every  conversion  to  the  faith 
is  marked  by  the  dramatic  elements  and  deep 
emotion  which  gather  about  the  careers  of  an 
Augustine  or  a  Bunyan.  Divine  grace  was  as 
truly  operative  in  a  Timothy  who  “  from  a 
child  ”  knew  and  followed  the  Scriptures  as 
it  was  in  Paul  with  his  sudden  and  revolu¬ 
tionary  conversion.  But  beneath  all  the  outer 
differences  of  experience  there  is  a  deeper 
unity.  These  millions  of  believers  share  some¬ 
thing  in  common.  They  embody  the  same  vir¬ 
tues;  they  are  arrayed  against  the  same  or 
similar  vices;  they  are  inspired  by  kindred  mo¬ 
tives;  they  are  energized  by  the  same  means  of 
grace;  they  are  thrilled  by  the  same  hopes. 
Obviously  collusion  is  impossible.  If  the 
Christian  believers  of  the  first  century  are  com¬ 
pared  with  those  of  the  twentieth,  and  if  the 
converts  in  foreign  lands  are  compared  with 


164  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 

those  in  our  midst,  it  will  be  found  that  they 
all  share  in  the  same  kind  of  experience.  In 
all  these  cases  the  Christian  religion  has  con¬ 
ferred  blessings  and  conquests  of  an  exactly 
similar  kind. 

Some  years  ago  a  young  physician  passed 
through  a  period  of  religious  doubt.  He  was 
impressed  by  the  apparent  conflict  between 
Science  and  Faith,  and  his  studies  as  a  medical 
man  had  created  misgivings  concerning  the 
basis  of  religion.  One  Sunday  evening  he 
went  into  a  little  Methodist  church  in  Canada. 
The  service  took  the  form  of  an  “  Experience 
Meeting.’’  Any  one  was  free  to  state  the 
meaning  and  value  of  religion  in  his  or  her 
life.  Some  thirty  or  forty  people  accepted  the 
invitation.  Each  told  a  separate  story.  Each 
spoke  from  the  standpoint  of  personal  knowl¬ 
edge  and  life.  The  young  physician  listened. 
He  said  to  himself,  “  A  medical  man  lays  aside 
all  preferences  and  prejudices  and  looks  at 
facts.  These  people  are  stating  what  they  be¬ 
lieve  to  be  facts.  Are  they  impostors  ?  I  know 
them  to  be  among  the  most  reliable  people  in 
the  community,  and  on  any  ordinary  matter  I 
would  accept  their  word.  No,  they  are  not 
impostors.  Are  they  self-deceived  ?  How  can 


TRUTH  OF  PERSONAL  EXPERIENCE  165 


all  of  them  be  self-deceived,  and  self-deceived 
on  the  same  issue?  No  two  statements  are 
exactly  alike,  yet  all  of  these  statements  have 
a  mass  of  experience  in  which  each  person 
shares.  The  substance  of  their  assertion  must 
be  true !  ”  And  the  young  physician  accepted 
the  faith  largely  on  the  strength  of  personal 
testimony.  Incredulity  is  no  mark  of  superior 
intelligence.  When  an  African  chief  was  told 
that  water  could  become  cold  enough  to  become 
solid,  he  was  incredulous.  His  scepticism  was 
no  hall-mark  of  advanced  mentality.  It  was 
loyalty  to  the  scientific  spirit  that  impelled  the 
physician  to  place  an  adequate  value  upon  the 
facts  of  experience  with  which  he  was  con¬ 
fronted.  The  argument  was  such  as  to  pre¬ 
clude  all  answer. 

Few  modern  writers  have  dealt  with  this 
phase  of  the  situation  more  convincingly  than 
has  Dr.  R.  W.  Dale  in  his  priceless  little  book, 
“  The  Living  Christ  and  the  Four  Gospels,” 
The  first  chapter  of  the  book  is  entitled  “  The 
Argument  from  Experience.”  He  writes  in 
relation  to  believers,  “  Whatever  may  have 
been  the  original  grounds  of  their  faith,  that 
faith  has  been  verified  in  their  personal  experi¬ 
ence.  They  have  trusted  in  Christ  for  certain 


166  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


great  and  wonderful  things,  and  have  received 
them;  what  they  have  received  assures  them 
that  Christ  is  alive,  that  He  is  within  reach, 
and  that  He  is  the  Saviour  and  Lord  of  men. 
That  they  have  received  these  blessings  in  an¬ 
swer  to  their  faith  is  a  matter  of  personal 
consciousness.  They  know  it,  as  they  know 
that  fire  burns.  .  .  .  The  faith  in  the  Liv¬ 

ing  Christ  of  those  who  have  had  the  great 
experiences  of  His  power  and  grace  is  not 
shaken  by  any  assaults  on  the  historical  trust¬ 
worthiness  of  the  story  of  His  early  ministry. 
Much  less  can  it  be  shaken  by  discussions  con¬ 
cerning  the  nature  and  origin  of  the  ancient 
Scriptures  of  the  Jewish  people.  Their  con¬ 
fidence  in  the  Old  and  the  New  Testaments 
may  perhaps  have  to  be  suspended  until  the 
controversies  of  scholars  are  closed,  or  until, 
on  historical  and  critical  grounds,  they  can  see 
their  own  way  to  firm  and  definite  conclusions 
about  the  main  questions  at  issue ;  but  not  their 
confidence  in  Christ.  They  may  be  uncertain 
about  the  books;  they  are  sure  about  Him. 
.  .  .  Their  faith  in  Him  rests  on  founda¬ 

tions  which  lie  far  beyond  the  reach  of  scien¬ 
tific  and  historical  criticism.  They  know  for 
themselves  that  Christ  is  the  Saviour  of  men; 


TRUTH  OP  PERSONAL  EXPERIENCE  167 


they  have  received  through  Him  the  remission 
of  their  sins:  He  has  translated  them  into  the 
Divine  Kingdom:  He  has  given  them  strength 
for  righteousness,  and  through  Him  they  have 
found  God.”  1 

Unbelief  may  seek  to  discount  this  credential 
by  materialistic  explanation.  It  may  say  (and 
it  is  the  only  thing  it  can  say),  “  We  admit 
these  most  interesting  eases  of  religious  con¬ 
version,  at  least  in  substance.  But  what  do 
they  prove?  May  they  not  be  strange  sub¬ 
jective  activities?  The  human  brain  is  capable 
of  queer  antics.  Under  the  spell  of  some  deep 
emotion,  under  the  pressure  of  some  intense 
excitement,  is  it  not  possible  for  a  man  to  be 
subjectively  elevated,  thrilled,  almost  en¬ 
tranced?  And  may  he  not  quite  easily  come 
to  regard  this  as  almost  a  rebirth  ?  ” 

In  other  words,  a  mental  explosion,  a  brain¬ 
storm?  The  reply  is  obvious.  In  a  large 
proportion  of  cases  religious  experience  is 
marked  by  little  or  no  excitement.  Multitudes 
of  the  most  distinguished  Christians  have  en¬ 
tered  the  fold  through  a  process  of  careful 
thought  and  deliberate  choice.  They  have  not 

1  “  The  Living  Christ  and  the  Four  Gospels,”  R.  W. 
Dale,  D.  D.,  pp.  10-23. 


168  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


been  swept  into  the  kingdom  by  any  violent 
gust  of  emotion.  We  readily  admit  the  mental 
agitation  that  marked  the  conversion  of  Au¬ 
gustine;  it  was  natural  and  reasonable,  con¬ 
sidering  the  kind  of  life  he  had  led.  But  no 
such  agitation  marked  the  conversion  of 
George  John  Romanes,  the  distinguished 
scientist.  It  was  deliberate  and  logical  think¬ 
ing  that  brought  him  to  the  Cross.  And  mil¬ 
lions  have  been  brought  by  the  same  process. 
In  saying  this  we  cast  no  suspicion  upon  genu¬ 
ine  emotion.  There  are  other  experiences  be¬ 
sides  religion  in  which  emotion  is  accepted  as 
a  valid  and  legitimate  factor.  Love,  friend¬ 
ship,  patriotism,  are  often  saturated  in  deep 
and  solemn  feeling,  but  no  one  thinks  of  dis¬ 
missing  them  as  mere  mental  aberrations  or 
subjective  illusions.  As  a  matter  of  fact  one 
is  more  likely  to  find  excitement  in  a  political 
meeting  or  on  the  Stock  Exchange  than  in  a 
Cathedral  service.  Why  should  unbelief  rec¬ 
ognize  it  in  other  provinces  of  life  and  yet 
deny  the  reality  of  religious  experience  when 
“  touched  by  emotion  ”  ? 

In  all  ordinary  cases  abnormal  subjective 
activity  leads  to  abnormal  results.  Mental  ex¬ 
plosions  and  brain-storms  are  followed  by  vio- 


TRUTH  OF  PERSONAL  EXPERIENCE  169 


lence,  generally  of  a  criminal  nature.  But  in 
all  genuine  cases  of  religious  conversion  you 
have  transition  to  a  higher,  nobler  and  finer 
life.  The  profane  man  begins  to'  pray;  the 
drunken  man  accepts  the  life  of  sobriety;  the 
dishonest  man  adopts  the  highest  standards  of 
honour;  the  impure  man  seeks  the  clean  heart 
and  the  right  spirit ;  passion  gives  place  to  pa¬ 
tience;  cruelty  to  kindness;  self-seeking  to 
service.  The  example  of  the  sinless  Christ  is 
made  the  determining  factor  of  experience; 
“  that  I  may  win  Christ  and  be  found  in  Him.” 
Some  converts  outdistance  others  in  their  prog¬ 
ress  toward  these  goals,  but  it  is  in  this  di¬ 
rection  and  toward  these  graces  that  all  true 
conversion  tends.  Can  any  sincere  seeker  of 
truth  bring  himself  to  believe  that  such  a  type 
of  experience  can  be  explained  by  some  curious 
form  of  mental  disturbance — probably  a  brain¬ 
storm?  Would  not  unbelief  subject  itself  to 
ridicule  by  seriously  advocating  such  a  theory  ? 

That  wise  Christian  teacher,  Dr.  Wm.  New¬ 
ton  Clarke  writes,  “  Is  there  really  such  a  God 
(as  Christ  reveals)?  How  shall  one  know? 
How  find  whether  here  is  really  the  counter¬ 
part  to  our  religious  nature?  The  test  of  the 
reality  of  counterparts  to  our  powers  is  found 


170  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


in  experience.  It  is  by  experience  that  we 
know  light  to  be  the  counterpart  of  the  eye, 
and  sound  of  the  ear.  Only  by  the  same  test 
can  we  ascertain  that  there  is  a  counterpart 
for  our  religious  nature.  .  .  .  Hence  any 

one  who  would  have  full  proof  of  the  good 
God’s  reality  must  put  it  to  the  experimental 
test.  He  must  take  the  good  God  for  real,  and 
receive  the  confirmation  that  will  follow.  If 
there  is  such  a  Being,  one  who  sincerely  casts 
himself  in  simple  confidence  upon  Him  to  trust 
Him  and  do  His  will,  will  find  living  evidence 
that  He  exists.  Such  a  God  will  respond  to 
confidence.  If  He  is  a  living  spirit  the  trust 
of  a  living  human  spirit  will  find  Him. 

“  This  experiment  has  been  made,  and  ex¬ 
perience  has  brought  its  answer.  Christianity 
is  a  life  of  faith  and  fellowship  with  God,  and 
men  have  been  living  in  it  for  ages.”  2 

Hundreds  of  years  ago  Roger  Bacon  said, 
“  Experience  alone  gives  accurate  knowledge.” 
For  nearly  two  thousand  years  the  Christian 
Faith  has  met  this  rigid  test.  Its  truths  have 
fitted  into  human  life,  as  the  key  fits  the  wards 
of  the  lock.  It  has  verified  itself  in  the  deep 

2  “An  Outline  of  Christian  Theology,”  Wm.  Newton 
Clarke,  D.  D.,  p.  124. 


TRUTH  OF  PERSONAL  EXPERIENCE  171 


realities  of  experience.  When  Christian  be¬ 
lievers  speak  in  confident  and  even  positive 
terms  they  are  not  to  be  charged  with  arro¬ 
gance.  There  are  some  things  which  they 
know.  Against  the  verdicts  of  consciousness 
the  waves  of  scepticism  beat  in  vain.  The 
testimony  of  believers  is  all  the  more  convinc¬ 
ing  when  we  remember  that  the  faith  which 
they  have  accepted  has  always  cut  against  the 
grain  of  human  impulse  and  desire.  It  has  set 
itself  against  the  currents  of  inclination  and 
self-interest.  It  has  reversed  the  whole  pro¬ 
gramme  of  life  in  the  cause  of  a  high,  difficult 
and  apparently  impossible  ideal.  Let  unbelief 
be  reasonable.  Let  it  look  at  this  long  line  of 
witnesses  stretching  from  apostolic  days  to  the 
present; — a  line  of  witnesses  made  up  of 
young  and  old,  rich  and  poor,  learned  and  un¬ 
learned,  and  drawn  from  nearly  “  every  kin¬ 
dred,  and  tongue,  and  people,  and  nation.”  8 
They  are  witnessing  to  the  same  truths;  they 
are  reciting  the  same  story;  they  are  voicing 
the  same  experiences.  Their  veracity  is  be¬ 
yond  question,  for  many  thousands  of  them 
are  martyrs  to  the  truths  they  assert.  Their 
statements  are  original,  spontaneous  and  mani- 


8  Rev.  5 : 2. 


172  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


fold  in  form,  yet  they  all  dove-tail  into  each 
other,  and  blend,  like  the  various  voices  of  a 
chorus,  in  the  one  tremendous  hymn  of  re¬ 
demption,  “  Worthy  is  the  Lamb  that  was 
slain.”  Confronting  this  situation,  what  is  the 
task  of  unbelief?  It  must  prove  that  this  host 
of  witnesses  is  made  up  either  of  impostors  or 
fanatics.  These  millions  are  either  deceivers 
or  self-deceived.  Let  unbelief  achieve  such  a 
triumph, — and  then  what?  Then  let  human 
history  close  with  one  universal  roar  of  laugh¬ 
ter,  the  laughter  of  cynicism,  mockery  and 
scorn.  Fate  is  shown  to  be  only  a  coarse  and 
pitiless  humourist;  nothing  is  sincere,  nothing 
is  sure,  nothing  is  worthy,  and  all  experience 
is  either  a  senseless  joke  or  a  hideous  lie. 


VI 

THE  WITNESS  OF  HISTORY 

UNBELIEF  may  not  undertake  the  task 
of  destroying  the  credential  of  faith 
based  upon  individual  experience;  it 
may,  however,  seek  to  discount  its  value.  It 
may  say,  “  The  previous  argument  based  upon 
experience  is  grounded  in  individual  cases;  as 
such  the  unit  is  too  small  to  accept  as  proof  of 
a  religion  that  claims  a  universal  and  final 
place  in  the  world.  What  is  the  action  of 
Christian  faith  upon  group  life?  What  are  its 
effects  upon  nations,  eras  and  civilizations? 
Here  history  is  the  witness. 

What  kind  of  a  world  was  it  into  which 
Christ  was  born  ?  What  were  world  conditions 
when  the  Christian  faith  made  its  first  con¬ 
tacts  with  life?  “  Now  when  Jesus  was  born 
in  Bethlehem  of  Judea  in  the  days  of  Herod 

the  king - ”  These  words  are  significant. 

“  Herod  the  king  ”  The  description  of  this 

*73 


174  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


phantom  king  given  by  Canon  Farrar  in  his 
“  Life  of  Christ  ”  may  well  be  quoted.  “  Al¬ 
though  doubts  have  been  thrown  on  the  mas¬ 
sacre  of  the  infants,  it  is  profoundly  in  ac¬ 
cordance  with  all  that  we  know  of  Herod’s 
character.  The  master-passions  of  that  able 
but  wicked  prince  were  a  most  unbounded  am¬ 
bition,  and  a  most  excruciating  jealousy.  His 
whole  career  was  red  with  the  blood  of  mur¬ 
der.  He  had  massacred  priests  and  nobles ;  he 
had  decimated  the  Sanhedrin;  he  had  caused 
the  High  Priest,  his  brother-in-law,  the  young 
and  noble  Aristobulus,  to  be  drowned  in  pre¬ 
tended  sport  before  his  eyes;  he  had  ordered 
the  strangulation  of  his  favourite  wife,  the 
beautiful  Asmonean  princess  Mariamne, 
though  she  seems  to  have  been  the  only  human 
being  whom  he  passionately  loved.  His  sons 
Alexander,  Aristobulus  and  Antipater, — his 
uncle  Joseph,  Antigonus  and  Alexander,  the 
uncle  and  father  of  his  wife,  his  mother-in- 
law  Alexandra,  his  kinsman  Cortobanus,  his 
friends  Dositheus  and  Godias,  were  but  a  few 
of  the  multitudes  who  fell  victims  to  his  sus¬ 
picious  and  guilty  terrors.  His  brother 
Pheroras  and  his  son  Archelaus  narrowly  es¬ 
caped  execution  by  his  orders.  Neither  the 


THE  WITNESS  OF  HISTOEY  175 


blooming  youth  of  the  prince  Aristobulus,  nor 
the  white  hairs  of  the  King  Hyrcanus  had  pro¬ 
tected  them  from  his  fawning  and  treacherous 
fury.  Deaths  by  strangulation,  deaths  by 
burning,  deaths  by  being  cleft  asunder,  deaths 
by  secret  assassination,  confessions  forced  by 
unutterable  torture,  acts  of  insolent  and  inhu¬ 
man  lust,  mark  the  annals  of  a  reign  which  was 
so  cruel  that,  in  the  energetic  language  of  the 
Jewish  ambassadors  to  the  Emperor  Augustus, 
the  survivors  during  his  lifetime  were  even 
more  miserable  than  the  sufferers.” 

In  describing  his  death,  Dr.  Farrar  writes 
with  deep  feeling; 

“  The  wretched  old  man,  whom  men  had 
called  the  Great,  lay  in  savage  frenzy  awaiting 
his  last  hour.  As  he  knew  that  no  one  would 
shed  one  tear  for  him,  he  determined  that  they 
should  shed  many  for  themselves ,  and  issued 
an  order  that  under  pain  of  death,  the  prin¬ 
cipal  families  in  the  kingdom  and  the  chiefs 
of  the  tribes  should  come  to  Jericho.  They 
came, — and  then,  shutting  them  in  the  hippo¬ 
drome,  he  secretly  commanded  his  sister  Sa¬ 
lome  that  at  the  moment  of  his  death  they 
should  all  be  massacred.  And  so,  choking  as 
it  were  with  blood,  devising  massacres  in  its 


176  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


very  delirium,  the  soul  of  Herod  passed  forth 
into  the  night.”  1 

The  world  into  which  Jesus  was  born  was  a 
world  that  tolerated  a  Herod.  It  would  be 
absurd  to  suggest  that  all  the  rulers  and  leaders 
of  that  age  were  as  vicious  as  this  Jewish 
monarch.  But  that  Jesus  commenced  His 
earthly  career  in  a  province  over  which  such 
a  monster  as  Herod  held  nominal  rule  is  a 
significant  fact. 

Rome  ruled  the  world.  It  was  the  symbol 
of  power.  It  knew  little  of  pity  or  mercy. 
Prisoners  were  slain  in  war.  Women  were 
captured  or  bought  just  like  so  many  sheep  or 
cattle,  to  be  the  personal  property  of  the  vic¬ 
tors.  Licentiousness  and  cruelty  were  two  of 
the  most  appalling  vices  of  the  Augustan  age, 
and  both  of  them  were  fostered  by  certain 
forms  of  heathen  religion.  When  Rome  con¬ 
quered  Greece  and  laid  plundering  hands  upon 
the  loot  of  the  East  it  lost  whatever  virtue  it 
had  inherited  from  a  more  strenuous  age.  It 
boasted  of  great  multitudes  of  slaves,  and  no 
argument  is  needed  to  prove  the  uncounted  op¬ 
portunities  for  sensual  indulgences  which  such 
a  vast  system  of  slavery  presented.  The  glad- 
1  “  The  Life  of  Christ,”  F.  W.  Farrar,  D.  D.,  pp.  32-36. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  HISTORY  177 


iatorial  sports  of  that  age  were  steeped  in 
cruelty  and  debauchery.  Men  fought  in  the 
arena  with  savage  beasts  until  the  beast  slew 
the  man  or  the  man  slew  the  beast.  The  more 
bloody  the  struggle  the  greater  seemed  to  be 
the  enjoyment  of  the  surging  multitudes. 
Infanticide,  or  the  murder  of  little  children, 
was  recognized  as  legitimate  and  conventional 
in  classical  heathenism.  This  crime  prevailed 
in  Europe  for  centuries  after  the  birth  of 
Christ.  Its  continuation  is  no  reflection  upon 
the  Christian  religion  but  is  rather  an  evidence 
of  its  firmly  entrenched  position  in  the  thought 
and  feeling  of  mankind  when  it  was  challenged 
by  the  wondrous  words  “  Suffer  little  children 
.  .  .  for  of  such  is  the  Kingdom  of  God.” 

Even  to  this  day  this  crime  prevails  in  cer¬ 
tain  districts  of  China  that  have  not  been 
reached  by  the  Christian  Gospel,  nor  by  the 
ministries  of  that  general  type  of  civilization 
which  may  be  regarded  as  Christian.  Only  a 
few  years  ago  a  Pagan  woman  of  China  used 
these  words,  “A  daughter  is  a  troublesome  and 
expensive  thing,  in  any  case.  Not  only  has 
she  to  be  fed,  but  there  is  all  the  trouble  of 
binding  her  feet,  getting  her  betrothed,  and 
making  up  her  wedding  garments.  Really  it  is 


178  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


no  wonder  that  so  many  baby  girls  are  slain  at 
birth.”  The  author  of  the  book  “  Things 
Chinese  ”  estimates  that  an  average  of  forty 
per  cent,  of  baby  girls  are  assassinated  in  the 
province  of  Fukhein.  A  similar  fate  fre¬ 
quently  befalls  male  infants  if  they  are  at  all 
malformed  or  inclined  to  be  very  delicate  or 
troublesome.  Forty  years  ago  Dr.  Hartwell 
estimated  that  the  average  of  female  children 
destroyed  was  about  fifty  per  cent,  in  the  prov¬ 
ince  of  Foochoo.  This  atrocious  crime  is  not 
regarded  seriously*.  The  social  conscience  is 
not  shocked.  There  is  nothing  in  the  way  of 
organized  protest  against  it.  It  is  looked  upon 
as  easily  within  the  limits  of  social  propriety. 
These  conditions  give  us  some  idea  of  the 
Pagan  world  in  the  first  century,  and  of  those 
parts  of  our  modern  world  as  yet  untouched 
by  the  Christian  Faith. 

Christian  scholarship  has  abundant  evidence 
in  support  of  its  contention  that  the  sin  of 
impurity  was  scarcely  open  to  censure  in  the 
heathen  world.  Even  granting  that  certain 
virtues  had  been  endorsed  by  Pagan  systems, 
we  must  remember  that  Christianity  was  born 
in  an  age  marked  by  utter  scepticism  of  such 
virtues.  As  Dr.  Fisher  has  said,  “  Greek 


THE  WITNESS  OF  HISTORY  179 


scepticism  spread  through  the  Roman  educated 
classes.  Cultivated  men  wondered  that  sooth¬ 
sayers  who  chanced  to  meet  could  look  one 
another  in  the  face  without  laughter.” 2  A 
great  thinker  and  scholar  has  not  hesitated  to 
pass  this  judgment  on  the  world  of  Christ’s 
day,  “  When  Christianity  appeared,  the  Gentile 
religions  were  both  at  their  best  and  at  their 
worst;  they  had  reached  the  highest  result  of 
their  wisdom  and  art,  but  they  had  also  de¬ 
scended  to  the  lowest  point  of  their  moral  im¬ 
potence.  The  world  was  never  so  highly  cul¬ 
tivated,  and  never  so  ethically  vile.  But  both 
the  strength  and  the  weakness  of  heathenism 
were  armed  against  the  new  faith,  which  was 
the  object  of  the  converging  attacks  of  all  the 
forces  of  the  Gentile  world.”  8 

In  the  first  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans  Paul  is  speaking  from  the  standpoint 
of  an  observer  rather  than  a  theologian,  and 
the  description  which  he  gives  of  the  heathen 
world  seems  almost  incredible.  We  are  awed 
by  the  capacities  of  human  nature  for  evil.  No 

2  “  History  of  the  Christian  Church,”  Geo.  P.  Fisher, 
D.  D.,  p.  io. 

8  “  Christian  Theology,”  W.  B.  Pope,  D.  D.,  Vol.  I, 

p.  144. 


180  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


great  historian  has  denied  the  truth  of  Paul’s 
indictment. 

In  the  midst  of  such  conditions  Jesus  ap¬ 
peared.  Against  the  dark  and  sullen  tides  of 
world-evil  the  Cross  was  planted  as  the  very 
protest  and  plea  of  God.  In  the  midst  of  un¬ 
speakable  immoralities  a  new  and  shining  ideal 
was  disclosed.  Men  were  called  to  repent  of 
all  known  sin  and  to  hold  fellowship  with  a 
God  of  infinite  holiness.  The  springs  of  life 
were  cleansed  and  hallowed.  The  Christian 
home  was  established  as  the  unit  of  a  new  and 
redeemed  humanity.  This  is  not  to  claim  the 
family  as  a  direct  creation  of  Christianity. 
Family  life  had  existed  in  some  form  or  other 
for  ages,  but  a  wide  gulf  separates  the  Pagan 
from  the  Christian  home.  It  may  be  regarded 
as  the  simplest  and  perhaps  the  oldest  form  of 
group  life.  It  had  been  marked  both  by  polyg¬ 
amy  and  polyandry,  and  of  the  two  polyandry 
was  perhaps  the  more  primitive.  Professor 
Peabody  writes,  “  Perhaps  the  series  of  inci¬ 
dents  suggested  by  McLennan  occurs;  first,  in 
a  state  of  constant  warfare,  the  neglect  of 
female  infants;  then  a  consequent  lack  of 
women  within  the  tribe ;  then  the  necessity  for 
exogamy,  or  the  procuring  of  wives  from  out- 


THE  WITNESS  OF  HISTOBY  181 


side  the  tribe ;  and  as  a  consequence,  the  custom 
of  marriage  by  capture,  or  the  recruiting  of 
domestic  life  from  other  tribes.”  3 

Christianity  brought  the  individual  man  and 
woman  to  its  altar,  and  consecrated  their  union 
upon  their  pledge  of  mutual  love  and  deathless 
devotion.  In  its  sacred  writings  it  made  the 
mutual  love  of  husband  and  wife  a  symbol,  and 
almost  a  sacrament  of  that  love  Divine  en¬ 
shrined  in  the  Cross.  Indeed  such  was  the 
sacredness  of  family  life  that  in  the  early 
Church  a  second  marriage,  following  the  de¬ 
cease  of  husband  or  wife,  was  looked  upon 
with  disfavour,  and  the  Christian  believer  con¬ 
tracting  such  a  marriage  felt  himself  placed 
upon  the  defensive.  Christianity  took  the 
family  as  it  found  it,  lifted  it  to  a  new  level, 
stamped  upon  it  a  new  sanctity,  flooded  it  with 
light,  and  virtually  made  it  a  new  creation. 
Every  reliable  historian  admits  this, 

A  similar  change  was  initiated  in  the  social 
relations  of  mankind.  The  case  of  slavery 
was  typical.  It  existed  as  a  mighty  institu¬ 
tion,  strongly  entrenched  and  almost  unchal¬ 
lenged.  Apparently  the  Christian  Faith  ad- 

* “Jesus  Christ  and  the  Social  Question/’  Peabody, 
P-  138. 


182  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


duced  no  direct  argument  against  it.  It  did 
not  direct  any  frontal  attack  upon  it.  With 
wonderful  spiritual  strategy  it  undermined  it. 
It  did  this  by  the  proclamation  of  a  universal 
Gospel.  Both  the  slave  and  the  slave-owner 
heard  the  message  of  redeeming  mercy.  Both 
responded  to  the  appeal  of  the  Evangel.  Both 
gathered  around  the  Lord’s  table.  There, 
kneeling  side  by  side,  both  repeated  the  Lord’s 
Prayer,  “  Our  Father.”  There  the  truth  of 
God  began  to  bite  like  an  acid  into  the  chains 
of  the  slave.  Vested  interests  of  evil  began  to 
weaken.  Gradually  the  slave-owner  saw  the 
truth;  “  if  God  is  my  Father,  and  if  He  is  the 
Father  of  this  man  beside  me,  then  we  are 
brethren.”  There  was  no  escape  from  this 
conclusion.  But  if  they  were  brethren  when 
kneeling  at  the  altar,  they  were  brethren  every¬ 
where.  Obviously  men  could  not  believe  in 
the  universal  Fatherhood  of  God  and  continue 
to  support  slavery,  without  involving  them¬ 
selves  in  glaring  contradiction.  Slowly  but 
surely  the  whole  fabric  of  slavery  weakened. 
Here  and  there  all  over  the  empire  Christian 
men  began  to  liberate  their  slaves,  while  others 
so  drafted  their  wills  that  their  slaves  should 
be  freed  after  the  death  of  their  owners.  Even 


THE  WITNESS  OF  HISTOEY  183 


this  imperfect  form  of  Christian  obligation 
witnessed  to  the  desire  to  terminate  the  evil 
system.  The  triumph  of  the  Faith  over  this 
form  of  evil  was  achieved  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  some  of  the  great  Christian  leaders  failed 
to  interpret  the  truth  of  the  Gospel,  and  were 
tolerant  of  the  institution  with  which  the  Gos¬ 
pel  was  in  conflict.  In  this  instance,  as  in 
others,  Christianity  has  had  to  bear  the  odium 
incurred  by  faulty  Christians,  but  no  fair- 
minded  critic  will  press  this  charge.  That 
slavery  existed  in  nations  nominally  Christian 
as  late  as  the  nineteenth  century  is  a  fact  that 
the  Christian  apologist  must  admit  with  a  sense 
of  deep  humiliation;  yet  every  honest  thinker 
can  see  the  essential  and  inescapable  contradic¬ 
tion  between  the  Christian  ideal  and  the  system 
in  question, — and  Christianity  has  a  right  to 
ask  that  it  be  judged  by  that  which  it  is  seeking 
to  do,  in  spite  of  the  inconsistencies  of  many 
who  are  its  nominal  followers. 

Every  point  of  contact  between  Christianity 
and  the  world  has  been  marked  by  purifying 
ministries.  Dr.  Hillis  remarks,  “  Journeying 
up  the  Nile  to  Thebes  and  Memphis,  we  are 
amazed  to  find  that  hideous  vices  were  once 
worshipped  as  gods  in  those  cities,  where 


184  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


splendour  and  sin  were  united  like  gold  and 
mud  in  the  same  image.  We  remember  also 
that  Cicero,  who  argues  so  eloquently  for  the 
rights  of  the  poet  Archias,  also  used  his  elo¬ 
quence  to  defend  a  gladiatorial  fight  in  which 
a  thousand  slaves  were  slain  to  satisfy  the 
bloodthirsty  instincts  of  eighty  thousand  of 
the  leading  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  that  so- 
called  4  Golden  Age/  Lecky  speaks  of  ten 
vices  of  Cicero’s  day,  only  two  of  which  re¬ 
main,  intemperance  and  the  social  evil.”  B 

Any  fair-minded  seeker  of  truth  can  readily 
see  that  the  Christian  Gospel,  which  declares 
the  Divine  Sonship  of  every  man,  must  be  in 
continued  conflict  with  any  system  which  de¬ 
grades  the  individual,  or  which  necessarily 
prevents  him  from  realizing  a  worthy  Chris¬ 
tian  manhood. 

Objections  may  be  raised  to  this  whole  ar¬ 
gument  on  the  ground  that  cruelties  have  been 
practiced  and  crimes  perpetrated  in  the  name 
of  the  Christian  religion.  Such  men  as 
Torquemada,  Alva  and  Cortez  will  be  referred 
to,  and  their  evil  memories  will  be  revived. 
The  Christian  apologist  must  admit,  with  pain 

5  “  The  Influence  of  Christ  in  Modern  Life,”  Newell 
Dwight  Hillis,  D.  D.,  p.  49. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  HISTOBY  185 


and  shame,  the  charges  brought  against  these 
men,  and  others  of  this  type.  He  cannot,  how¬ 
ever,  allow  such  charges  to  be  accepted  as  valid 
arguments  against  the  Christian  religion. 
American  patriotism  is  a  fact,  in  spite  of  any¬ 
thing  connected  with  the  name  and  memory  of 
Benedict  Arnold.  Should  some  medical  man 
administer  deadly  poison  to  a  group  of  his 
patients,  and  should  the  act  be  followed  by 
fatal  results,  not  one  of  us  would  condemn 
Science,  nor  should  we  call  for  the  suppres¬ 
sion  of  the  medical  schools  for  the  training  of 
physicians  and  surgeons.  We  should  know 
that  medical  science  would  be  the  first  to  con¬ 
demn  such  a  base  and  unworthy  practitioner, 
and  that,  in  any  case,  it  would  refuse  to  be 
judged  by  his  record.  No  sincere  critic  will 
judge  the  early  Church  by  a  Judas  Iscariot, 
nor  the  Church  of  the  Christian  centuries  by 
a  Cortez,  a  Torquemada,  an  Alva,  a  Henry 
VIII  of  England,  or  a  Louis  XIV  of  France. 

The  main  contention  of  this  argument  re¬ 
mains  unimpaired.  The  claims  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  religion  stand  justified  by  its  work  in  the 
world.  The  honour,  happiness  and  blessed¬ 
ness  of  the  human  race  have  invariably  fol¬ 
lowed  the  track  of  the  Christian  Faith,  when 


186  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


that  Faith  has  been  fully  and  sincerely  pro¬ 
claimed. 

Less  than  two  hundred  years  ago  a  lamen¬ 
table  condition  of  things  obtained  in  England. 
The  energies  of  the  Reformation  movement 
were  largely  expended.  The  Established 
Church  failed  to  speak  to  the  conscience  and 
imagination  of  men.  The  ministries  of  re¬ 
ligion  were  perfunctory  and  ineffective.  A 
wide-spread  scepticism  prevailed.  Religion 
was  more  a  matter  of  jest  than  of  serious 
thought.  The  people  were  steeped  in  both 
ignorance  and  vice.  Few  could  read  a  page 
or  sign  their  own  names.  Nothing  was 
cheaper  than  human  life.  The  death  penalty 
was  inflicted  for  comparatively  trivial  misde¬ 
meanours.  The  law  recognized  over  two  hun¬ 
dred  capital  offences.  “If  a  man  injured 
Westminster  Bridge,  or  cut  down  young  trees, 
or  shot  at  rabbits,  or  stole  property  valued  at 
five  shillings,  or  returned  prematurely  from 
transportation,  for  any  of  these  offences  he 
was  immediately  hanged.”  6  Executions  were 
public,  and  were  frequently  regarded  as  holi¬ 
day  diversions.  Boys  of  tender  age,  often  un- 

0 Mackenzie’s  “History  of  the  Nineteenth  Century/* 
PP-  77,  78. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  HISTORY  187 


der  eight,  were  set  to  work  for  twelve  hours  a 
day  in  mines,  collieries  and  factories.  London 
saloons  were  placarded  with  such  signs  as 
these,  “  Come  inside  and  get  drunk  for  a 
penny,  and  dead  drunk  for  twopence.  Straw 
provided  free.”  A  leading  English  aristocrat, 
in  his  letters  to  his  son,  felt  free  to  instruct 
him  in  the  arts  of  seduction.  Hannah  More 
said,  u  We  saw  but  one  Bible  in  the  whole 
parish  of  Cheddar,  and  that  was  used  to  prop 
a  flower-pot.”  The  two  favourite  texts  in  the 
pulpits  of  the  Established  Church  were  “  Be 
not  righteous  overmuch,”  and  “  Let  your 
moderation  be  known  unto  all  men.”  This  de¬ 
plorable  yet  not  remote  era  of  English  history 
is  graphically  described  by  John  Richard  Green 
in  his  “  Short  History  of  the  English  People,” 
and  the  foregoing  statements  are  largely  based 
on  his  authority. 

It  was  at  such  a  period  that  a  great  religious 
leader  appeared.  He  had  all  the  grace,  culture 
and  literary  charm  of  Oxford  University. 
Through  all  his  travels  in  England,  Scotland 
and  Ireland  John  Wesley,  “  the  little  man  on 
horseback,”  was  never  known  to  use  a  slang 
expression.  With  George  Whitfield  and  other 
devoted  colleagues,  this  man  led  a  religious 


188  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


movement  that  shook  Great  Britain.  “  The 
world  is  my  parish,”  he  said,  and  true  to  that 
extended  vision,  he  and  his  colleagues  played 
no  small  part  in  laying  the  spiritual  founda¬ 
tions  of  our  Republic.  “  In  September,  1784, 
in  his  private  chamber,  he  set  apart  the  itiner¬ 
ant  preachers  as  presbyters,  and  laid  his  hands 
on  Coke,  consecrating  him  to  the  office  of  Su¬ 
perintendent  of  the  work  in  America.  .  .  . 

In  May,  1789,  its  chief  pastors  presented  an 
address  to  President  Washington  beginning 
with  the  superscription,  ‘  We,  the  bishops  of 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  ’ ;  and  since 
then  its  life  and  work  have  been  incorporated 
with  those  of  the  nation  in  which  it  is  to-day 
the  largest  Protestant  denomination.”  7 

As  the  result  of  the  great  Evangelical  re¬ 
vival  of  the  eighteenth  century  which  was  in¬ 
itiated  by  Wesley  and  his  comrades,  Great 
Britain  was  visited  by  a  spiritual  Renaissance. 
Every  organized  evil  was  shaken.  Vast  fields 
of  semi-pagan  life  were  claimed  for  the  Cross. 
Slavery  was  ended  in  the  British  Empire. 
Robert  Raikes  initiated  the  Sabbath  school  in 
Gloucester.  The  Foreign  Missionary  move- 

7  “  The  Religious  Leaders  of  Oxford,”  S..  Parkes 
Cadman,  D.  D.,  pp.  358,  359.  \ 


THE  WITNESS  OP  HISTORY  189 


ment  was  born.  The  “  Seven  Men  of  Pres¬ 
ton  ”  started  the  Temperance  crusade  which  is 
now  girdling  the  globe.  Plimsoll  revealed  the 
cruel  conspiracy  by  means  of  which  sailors 
were  sent  to  their  deaths  so  that  ship-owners 
might  recover  ample  sums  of  money  from 
overinsured  but  unsafe  ships.  John  Howard 
took  a  humane  spirit  into  the  foul  and  filthy 
prisons  of  his  country,  and  later  into  the  dun¬ 
geons  and  lazar-houses  of  Europe,  dying  as  a 
martyr  to  his  cause  in  distant  Russia.  Still 
later  Lord  Shaftesbury  passed  his  beneficent 
factory  acts  and  their  impact  was  felt  far  be¬ 
yond  the  shores  of  his  own  country.  Peace 
Societies  sprang  into  being.  The  principle  of 
arbitration  was  introduced  into  the  councils  of 
mankind,  nor  is  the  value  of  that  principle  to 
be  lightly  brushed  aside  because  it  failed  to 
prevent  the  recent  World  War.  No  living  man 
can  measure  the  blessings  which  have  crowned 
the  lives  of  millions  of  men,  women  and  chil¬ 
dren  through  the  movement  known  as  the 
“  Great  Revival  ”  led  by  John  Wesley  and  his 
Christian  brethren. 

How  does  the  unbeliever  interpret  such 
spiritual  crises  and  achievements  as  these?  In 
many  instances  I  fear  they  are  only  inter- 


190  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


preted  in  a  loose  and  slovenly  fashion.  Urn 
belief  cannot  trace  these  wide-spread  and 
beneficent  changes  to  the  Christian  Gospel 
without  surrendering  its  own  case.  Resorting 
to  vague,  if  not  careless,  speech  it  refers  to 
“  the  spread  of  education/’  Only  a  foolish 
man  would  decry  education,  but  it  is  obvious 
that  its  value  as  a  redeeming  factor  in  the  life 
of  the  world  has  been  terribly  overestimated. 
The  effect  of  purely  secular  education  on  some 
minds  is  to  make  an  otherwise  clumsy  wrong¬ 
doer  into  a  shrewd  and  efficient  criminal,  un¬ 
less  such  education  be  accompanied  by  some 
religious  ministry.  Crooks  and  scoundrels  can 
be  found  among  college  graduates.  Dr.  Strong 
writes,  “  The  republics  of  Greece  and  Rome, 
and,  if  I  mistake  not,  all  the  republics  that  have 
ever  lived  and  died,  were  more  intelligent  at 
the  end  than  at  the  beginning,  but  growing  in¬ 
telligence  could  not  compensate  for  decaying 
morals.”  8  On  this  point  the  words  of  Wash¬ 
ington  in  his  Farewell  Address  are  well  worth 
quoting,  “  Whatever  may  be  conceded  to  the 
influence  of  refined  education  on  minds  of  pe¬ 
culiar  structure,  reason  and  experience  both 
forbid  us  to  expect  that  national  morality  can 
8  “  Our  Country,”  Josiah  Strong,  D.  D.f  p.  192. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  HISTOBY  191 


prevail  in  exclusion  of  religious  principle.” 
Possibly  no  country  in  the  world  had  higher 
standards  of  secular  education  and  scientific 
research  than  had  Germany,  but  the  part  that 
Germany  played  in  plunging  the  world  into 
war,  and  the  fearful  atrocities  justly  charged 
against  her,  furnish  abundant  evidence  that 
secular  education  does  not  and  will  not  save 
mankind. 

The  great  spiritual  improvements  to  which 
history  bears  witness  cannot  fairly  be  credited 
to  this  source. 

Sometimes  unbelief  ignores  the  direct 
agency  of  the  Christian  religion  in  the  higher 
life  of  the  world  by  tacitly  crediting  all  real 
human  progress  to  Evolution.  Where  this  at¬ 
titude  is  not  due  to  intellectual  carelessness  I 
fear  it  must  be  regarded  as  downright  insin¬ 
cerity.  The  Christian  religion  was  a  new  fac¬ 
tor  introduced  into  the  life  of  the  world,  and 
enough  has  already  been  written  to  show  that 
its  very  introduction  was  met  with  the  most 
intense  hostility  of  which  the  world  was  capa¬ 
ble.  It  is  not  excited  theologians  or  biased 
Christian  apologists,  but  clear-eyed  secular 
historians  like  Green  who  trace  the  wonderful 
developments  of  the  last  century  and  a  half  to 


192  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


the  Evangelical  Revival  of  the  eighteenth  cen¬ 
tury. 

A  still  more  vivid  illustration  may  be  used. 

Most  intelligent  people  have  some  clear  idea 
of  cannibalism — “  The  killing  of  men  and 
women,  and  the  subsequent  eating  of  their 
flesh.”  We  all  unite  in  regarding  it  as  one  of 
the  most  loathsome  aspects  of  social  savagery. 
Its  prevalence  has  been  much  more  frequent 
and  recent  than  many  suppose.  Over  great 
tracts  of  our  world  this  custom  has  been  prac¬ 
ticed  within  the  memory  of  men  now  living. 
Rev.  James  Chalmers  reported  that  he  discov¬ 
ered  abundant  evidence  of  cannibal  practice  of 
the  most  filthy  description  in  New  Guinea. 
According  to  his  testimony  it  was  the  custom 
when  a  man  was  shot  down  for  all  to  rush 
upon  him  for  the  purpose  of  biting  off  his  nose 
from  his  body  and  swallowing  it,  because  “  the 
one  who  accomplishes  this  feat  is  looked  upon 
as  greater  than  the  person  who  shot  the  vic¬ 
tim.”  After  such  an  achievement  he  was  the 
man  who  stood  out  as  the  hero  of  the  hunt. 
It  is  well  to  remember  that  Chalmers  com¬ 
menced  his  work  in  New  Guinea  only  half  a 
century  ago.  It  was  while  this  brave  man  was 
labouring  amid  such  conditions  that  the  unfor- 


THE  WITNESS  OF  HISTOEY  193 


tunate  ship  St.  Paul  with  over  three  hundred 
Chinese  passengers  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
natives.  “  They  cooped  up  their  victims  like 
animals  marked  for  slaughter,  and  clubbed, 
cooked  and  ate  so  many  every  day  until  only 
four  men  were  left.”  This  narrative  may  be 
found  in  the  Missionary  Record  of  August 
1895.  To-day  we  may  travel  at  our  conve¬ 
nience  all  over  New  Guinea  with  no  more  fear 
of  such  a  fate  than  in  our  own  land.  What 
has  wrought  the  change?  The  Christian  Gos¬ 
pel  faithfully  preached  and  consistently  exem¬ 
plified  by  Christian  men.  If  any  doubt  remains 
of  the  truth  of  this  statement  it  should  be  re¬ 
moved  by  the  testimony  of  the  men  who  were 
once  violent  savages  but  who  are  now  living 
exemplary  lives. 

Dr.  J.  S.  Dennis,  that  great  authority  on 
Christian  Missions,  writes  as  follows,  “  Not 
very  long  ago  the  ship  Scottish  Dale  was 
wrecked  on  Vatoa,  in  the  Fiji  group  of  islands. 
The  crew  were  alarmed  when  they  saw  a  na¬ 
tive  boat  bearing  down  upon  them,  and  put 
forth  every  effort  to  flee  from  the  clutches  of 
those  whom  they  supposed  to  be  cannibal  sav¬ 
ages.  When  they  reached  the  harbour  of 
Suva,  on  the  southern  coast  of  Viti  Levu,  a 


194  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


distance  of  nearly  250  miles,  and  found  they 
were  under  the  protection  of  the  British  flag, 
they  congratulated  themselves  on  their  narrow 
escape  from  a  dreadful  fate.  Their  alarm  was 
needless,  as  Christian  missions  had  already 
transformed  the  Vatoans  from  ruthless  canni¬ 
bals  into  kindly  Christians,  and  the  speed  with 
which  they  were  hastening  to  the  shipwrecked 
men  was  simply  due  to  their  desire  to  help  the 
unfortunate  sailors.  These  men  were  told, 
“  You  would  have  been  as  safe  as  in  any 
European  or  American  city,  since  the  Vatoans 
had  saved  many  shipwrecked  crews,  freely 
giving  them  food  and  lodging,  and  preserving 
their  stranded  goods  which  they  freely  re¬ 
stored  to  their  owners.”  9  Yet  these  were  the 
sons  of  men  who  had  been  savage  and  brutal 
cannibals.  Granting  the  truth  of  these  and 
similar  narratives,  can  any  fair-minded  thinker 
hesitate  to  credit  these  marvellous  changes  to 
the  Christian  Gospel  in  the  relation  of  cause 
and  effect? 

Charles  Darwin  has  sometimes  been  repre¬ 
sented  as  an  enemy  of  the  Christian  religion. 
Was  he?  Darwin  made  two  journeys  to  the 

9  “  Christian  Missions  and  Social  Progress,”  J.  S. 
Dennis,  D.  D.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  338-339. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  HISTORY  195 


South  Sea  Islands  at  an  interval  of  thirty 
years.  Very  soon  after  his  first  visit  a  strong 
missionary  enterprise  was  established  in  these 
islands,  and  in  twenty-five  years  it  wrought 
such  changes  that  Darwin  could  hardly  believe 
the  evidence  of  his  own  eyes.  On  his  return 
to  England  he  sent  a  cheque  for  £25  to  the 
Church  of  England  Missionary  Society  as  a 
token  of  his  appreciation  of  the  change 
wrought  by  the  Christian  religion  among  sav¬ 
age  peoples.  On  the  occasion  of  his  visit  to  a 
mission  for  the  Maoris  of  New  Zealand  he 
uttered  these  significant  words,  “  The  work  of 
the  missionary  is  the  enchanter's  wand."  Was 
not  that  almost  equivalent  to  a  declaration  of 
belief  in  miracle?  Was  it  not  virtually  an 
avowal  of  Christian  faith? 

Not  by  the  working  of  some  blind,  imper¬ 
sonal  cosmic  forces,  but  by  the  revelation  of 
One  who  was  infinitely  holy,  and  who  spoke 
to  men  in  terms  of  mercy  and  love,  have  these 
changes  been  wrought.  The  Gospel  has  veri¬ 
fied  its  claims  in  the  life  of  mankind.  The 
wilderness  and  the  solitary  place  have  been 
made  glad,  and  the  desert  has  rejoiced  and 
blossomed  as  the  rose.  The  fruitage  of  faith 
is  found  in  life. 


196  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


We  need  not  go  back  even  as  far  as  the  last 
century  to  see  these  miracles  of  grace  in  ac¬ 
tion.  Modern  India  presents  a  fascinating 
study.  Every  student  of  Indian  life  knows 
that  its  population  is  separated  into  distinct 
castes,  and  that  between  these  castes  there  is 
no  form  of  contact.  Lower  than  the  lowest 
caste  will  be  found  a  great  group  of  fifty  mil¬ 
lions  of  people.  They  are  outcastes.  They  are 
apparently  too  low  to  be  included  in  the  lowest 
level  of  the  caste  system.  They  have  no  rights. 
Hindu  religion  explains  their  miserable  condi¬ 
tion  as  due  to  evil  behaviour  in  some  previous 
form  of  existence,  possibly  millions  of  years 
ago.  “  They  are  not  allowed  to  take  water 
from  the  village  well,  for  the  caste  people  hold 
that  their  unclean  touch  would  contaminate  it. 
.  .  .  At  a  recent  public  meeting  in  Madras 

one  of  them  plaintively  asked  why  they  should 
be  debarred  from  public  wells  and  tanks, 
whereas  cattle  and  dogs  were  allowed  the  ben¬ 
efit  of  them/’ 10  It  is  next  to  impossible  for 
the  children  of  these  wretched  people  to  obtain 
an  education.  Their  employment  is  of  the 
lowest  and  most  repellent  type.  They  are  usu¬ 
ally  excluded  from  public  roads,  markets,  and 
10  “  Building  with  India,”  D.  J.  Fleming,  p.  165. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  HISTORY  197 


places  of  worship.  Economically  their  condi¬ 
tion  is  one  of  serfdom,  if  not  in  form,  at  least 
in  substance.  This  is  the  lot  of  a  group  of 
people  in  modern  India,  and  the  group  is 
nearly  as  large  as  half  the  population  of  the 
United  States. 

The  Christian  Gospel  has  been  taken  to  this 
cowed  and  dejected  people,  and  the  results  have 
been  more  than  encouraging.  To  them  the 
Gospel  has  opened  up  a  new  world.  The  doc¬ 
trine  of  the  Divine  Fatherhood  enables  them 
to  claim  brotherhood  with  all  men.  It  dooms 
caste  as  it  destroyed  slavery.  In  some  parts  of 
the  country  there  have  been  mass  movements 
toward  the  Christian  Faith.  Fleming  writes, 
“  Very  often  these  mass  movements  toward 
Christianity  have  been  unexpected,  and  usually 
they  have  been  so  overwhelming  in  their  num¬ 
bers  that  they  have  found  the  missions  quite 
unprepared  to  deal  adequately  with  them.”  11 
Should  this  great  missionary  work  continue  to 
deepen  and  expand  as  Christian  leaders  expect, 
the  whole  of  this  “  outcaste  ”  life  of  India  may 
be  changed,  perhaps  within  a  generation.  In 
that  case,  how  will  unbelief  interpret  the 
change?  We  seriously  ask  one  question;  will 
11  “  Building  with  India,”  D.  J.  Fleming,  p.  165. 


198  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


it  be  fair  on  the  part  of  some  future  sociologist, 
with  an  anti-Christian  bias,  to  explain  this 
marvellous  movement  in  India  in  terms  of 
evolution f  For  that  is  what  he  will  be 
tempted  to  do. 

Confronting  such  conditions  of  crime,  igno¬ 
rance  and  wretchedness  as  those  which  have 
already  yielded  to  the  preaching  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Gospel,  what  could  unbelief  have  done? 
What  weapons  could  it  have  used?  Upon 
what  resources  could  it  have  drawn?  What 
possible  motive  could  it  have  felt  for  world- 
redemption?  Is  it  possible  for  unbelief,  as 
unbelief,  to  make  a  single  constructive  pro¬ 
posal? 

In  the  year  325  A.  d.  the  Council  of  Nicea 
was  convened.  It  met  soon  after  the  conclu¬ 
sion  of  the  persecutions  waged  by  Rome 
against  the  Christians.  An  Edict  of  Tolera¬ 
tion  had  been  proclaimed,  and  a  nominally 
Christian  emperor  sat  upon  the  imperial 
throne.  About  three  hundred  Christian  lead¬ 
ers  met  together  to  help  define  the  doctrines 
and  decide  the  program  of  the  Church.  We 
are  told  that  many  of  them  bore  the  scars  left 
upon  them  by  the  torture  of  the  Diocletian  per¬ 
secution.  “  There  sat  Paphnutius,  Bishop  of 


THE  WITNESS  OF  HISTOEY  199 


the  Thebaid,  who  halted  to  his  seat,  trailing  a 
leg  of  which  the  sinews  had  been  cut  while  he 
toiled  in  the  mines,  and  showing  by  his  seared 
and  hollow  eye-socket  the  anguish  he  had  un¬ 
dergone  in  the  persecution.  There  Paul,  a 
Mesopotamian  Bishop,  uplifted  in  benediction 
a  hand  which  the  fire  had  scorched/’ 12  Others 
had  been  branded  by  hot  irons  or  had  suffered 
some  form  of  mutilation.  It  is  doubtful  if  a 
single  member  of  that  Council  had  been  free 
from  the  risk  of  torture  and  death. 

Can  unbelief  duplicate  such  a  scene?  Is 
there  any  instance  in  which  the  leaders  of  un¬ 
belief  have  ever  come  together  to  report  hu¬ 
man  progress  at  the  cost  of  the  suffering  and 
martyrdom  of  unbelievers  ?  Is  it  Christian  be¬ 
lief  or  scepticism  which  has  sweat  blood  to 
promote  world-redemption?  Unbelief  has  no 
motive  for  such  sacrificial  service.  Scepticism, 
as  such,  has  no  kinship  with  the  Cross;  there¬ 
fore  it  builds  no  hospitals  for  the  suffering, 
no  mission  schools  for  the  ignorant,  no  homes 
for  orphans,  no  rescue  stations  for  the  lepers ! 
Is  this  challenged?  Let  unbelief  point  to  a 
single  instance  in  which  it  has  sent  one  of  its 

12  “  Lives  of  the  Fathers,”  F.  W.  Farrar,  D.  D.,  Vol.  I, 
P-  355- 


200  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


own  apostles  into  the  world’s  dark  and  desolate 
places  to  do  a  work  resembling  that  of  Carey 
in  India,  Bishop  Hannington  or  Dr.  Living¬ 
stone  in  Africa,  Morrison  in  China,  Judson  in 
Burmah,  Chalmers  in  New  Guinea,  or  Grenfell 
in  Labrador.  Let  Christianity  and  unbelief  be 
judged  by  their  fruits!  Can  any  test  be  fairer 
or  more  convincing?  Here  Christianity  might 
well  rest  its  case. 

In  order  to  destroy  the  force  of  this  cre¬ 
dential  unbelief  may  refer  to  the  World  War. 
In  that  awful  crisis  in  human  affairs  it  may 
find  some  material  for  rejoinder.  The  sub¬ 
stance  of  its  reply  may  take  the  following 
form:  “This  credential,  based  upon  the  influ¬ 
ence  of  the  Christian  Faith  in  history,  might 
have  carried  weight  a  decade  ago.  It  is  dif¬ 
ferent  now.  Has  not  the  World  War  de¬ 
stroyed  the  force  of  the  argument?  Have  we 
not  seen  the  collapse  of  Christianity?  The 
fair  heavens  have  been  darkened  by  the  smoke 
of  burning  villages  and  cities.  The  green  earth 
has  been  drenched  by  tides  of  human  blood. 
Millions  of  the  finest  of  the  young  men  of  the 
highest  civilization  have  been  swept  away  in 
the  pride  and  flower  of  their  manhood.  Other 


THE  WITNESS  OF  HISTOEY  201 


millions  have  been  maimed,  mutilated  or 
blinded  for  life.  Priceless  works  of  art  have 
been  destroyed.  Gigantic  debts  have  been 
piled  up  which  threaten  to  force  Europe  into 
bankruptcy.  Bestial  passions  have  been  let 
loose.  Maidenhood  has  been  ravished.  The 
graves  have  been  ripped  open,  and  the  bodies 
of  the  dead  despoiled.  Uncounted  hosts  of 
innocent  noncombatants,  including  the  aged 
and  the  infant,  have  been  annihilated.  Hymns 
of  hate  have  been  sung  by  millions — hymns 
that  sound  like  the  ravings  of  madness  rather 
than  the  expressions  of  rational  feeling.  Even 
since  the  armistice  bitter  animosities  have  been 
created  which  may  find  their  fruitage  in  an¬ 
other  and  more  brutal  war.  Where  is  God? 
Where  is  Christ  ?  Where  can  we  find  evidence 
of  a  Christian  Faith  that  redeems?  In  the 
horrors  of  a  world  war,  horrors  countless  in 
number  and  nameless  in  shame,  do  we  not  see 
the  failure  of  Christianity  ?  ” 

Many  have  asked  this  question,  some  in  a 
quibbling  spirit,  others  with  an  intensity  of 
interest  which  commands  respect. 

The  World  War  does  not  prove  the  failure 
of  Christianity ;  it  proves  the  utter  failure  of 
all  its  substitutes 


202  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


If  we  select  Germany  as  the  object  of  spe¬ 
cial  examination  it  is  not  because  we  assume 
that  all  of  the  world’s  guilt  was  found  in  one 
nation.  It  is  assumed,  however,  as  something 
beyond  question,  that  Germany  was  respon¬ 
sible  for  the  initiation  of  the  war,  and  was 
mainly  responsible  for  the  atrocities  that 
marked  its  procedure.  If  this  contention  be 
granted  we  are  free  to  consider  the  moral  con¬ 
dition  of  Germany  prior  to  the  war.  Did  it 
not  represent  a  nation  from  which  the  Chris¬ 
tianity  of  the  New  Testament  had  been  largely 
banished  ?  The  churches  of  Germany  were  al¬ 
most  empty ;  the  Sabbath  was  no  longer  a  day 
of  worship;  Christian  theology  had  been  re¬ 
vised,  if  not  emasculated,  by  a  rationalism 
largely  irreligious  ;  and  the  Christian  leaders  of 
former  generations  were  repudiated  for  such 
substitutes  as  Nietzsche,  Treitschke,  Bernhardi, 
Haeckel,  and  others  of  their  type.  The  Chris¬ 
tian  interpretation  of  life  was  abandoned  by 
the  almost  universal  adoption  of  a  purely  ma¬ 
terialistic  philosophy.  Darwinism  was  taken 
up  from  the  realm  of  vegetable  and  animal  life, 
and  was  made  the  ruling  principle  in  all  na¬ 
tional  interests  and  relationships.  It  was  as¬ 
sumed  and  persistently  taught  that  the  method 


THE  WITNESS  OF  HISTORY  203 


of  nature  based  on  struggle,  rapine  and  bloody 
conquest,  and  working  through  the  survival  of 
the  strongest  toward  the  improvement  of  type, 
was  the  supreme  law  for  groups  and  nations. 
If  one  sees  two  wolves  fighting  over  a  bone, 
and  if,  for  the  sake  of  capturing  the  bone,  the 
one  wolf  kills  the  other,  we  do  not  subject  the 
victor  to  moral  censure.  That  seems  to  be 
nature's  way  of  improving  the  type  to  which 
this  animal  belongs.  The  probability  is  that 
the  stronger  wolf  has  survived,  and  the  type 
has  been  fractionally  raised  by  his  survival. 
So  teaches  Darwin.  In  Germany'  this  method 
of  procedure  was  enthroned  as  the  sovereign 
law  of  life.  The  adage  “  Might  is  Right  ”  is 
thus  seen  to  be  rooted  in  a  philosophy  which 
involves  the  absolute  contradiction  of  Jesus 
and  the  negation  of  the  Cross. 

In  Germany  it  was  definitely  taught  that  as 
long  as  the  State  was  promoting  its  own  in¬ 
terests,  it  could  do  no  wrong,  no  matter  what 
excesses  or  agonies  it  inflicted,  because  there 
was  nothing  above  the  State  to  pass  judgment 
or  impose  penalties  upon  it.  There  was  a  na¬ 
tional  reversion  to  the  cosmic  process.  With 
this  atheistic  dogma  asserted  at  every  turn,  it 
was  no  wonder  that  war  was  spoken  of  as  a 


204  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


“biological  necessity.”  This  was  the  mould¬ 
ing  and  determining  dogma  which  was  ac¬ 
cepted  on  nearly  all  hands  by  the  German  peo¬ 
ple.  Nietzsche  voices  the  deepest  elements  of 
this  view  when  he  writes,  “  One  must  resist 
all  sentimental  weakness;  life  in  its  essence  is 
appropriation,  injury,  the  overpowering  of 
whatever  is  foreign  to  us  and  weaker  than 
ourselves;  suppression,  hardness,  the  forcing 
upon  others  of  our  own  forms,  the  incorpora¬ 
tion  of  others,  or,  at  the  very  least  and  mildest, 
their  exploitation.”  13 

Again,  “We  believe  that  man’s  Will  to  Life 
had  to  be  intensified  into  unconditional  Will 
to  Power;  we  hold  that  hardness,  violence, 
slavery,  danger  in  the  street  and  in  the  heart, 
secrecy,  stoicism,  arts  of  temptation  and 
devilry  of  all  kinds;  that  everything  evil,  ter¬ 
rible,  tyrannical,  wild-beast-like  and  serpent¬ 
like  in  man  contributes  to  the  elevation  of  the 
species  as  much  as  its  opposite, — and  in  saying 
this  we  do  not  even  say  enough.”  14 

Again,  “  Those  very  men  who  are  so  strictly 
kept  within  bounds  by  good  manners  .  .  . 

who,  in  their  behaviour  to  one  another,  show 

18 “Beyond  Good  and  Evil,”  Fr.  Nietzsche,  sec.  259. 

14  Ibid.,  sec.  44. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  HISTORY  205 


themselves  so  inventive  in  consideration,  self- 
control,  delicacy,  loyalty  and  friendship,— 
those  very  men  are  to  the  outside  world,  to 
things  foreign  and  to  foreign  countries,  little 
better  than  so  many  uncaged  beasts  of  prey;. 
.  .  .  they  become  rejoicing  monsters,  who 

perhaps  go  on  their  way,  after  a  hideous  se¬ 
quence  of  murder,  conflagration,  violation,  tor¬ 
ture,  with  as  much  gaiety  as  if  they  had  merely 
taken  part  in  some  student  gambols.  .  .  . 

Deep  in  the  nature  of  all  these  noble  races  there 
lurks  unmistakably  the  beast  of  prey,  the  blond 
beast,  lustfully  roving  in  search  of  booty  and 

•  >  >>  15 

victory. 

These  quotations  could  be  indefinitely  multi¬ 
plied.  They  clearly  indicate  the  writer’s 
philosophy.  The  whole  world  exists  for  the 
sake  of  a  few  “  supermen.”  That  goal  can 
only  be  reached  by  regarding  all  the  rest  of 
mankind  as  tools  and  instruments.  All  the 
old  ethical  rules  are  displaced.  The  “  super¬ 
men  ”  are  entirely  beyond  good  and  evil. 
Here  you  have  the  Darwinian  dogma  of  sur¬ 
vival  carried  forward  to  the  human  race  and 
applied  with  all  the  thoroughness  and  con¬ 
sistency  of  a  great  German  thinker. 

1B“A  Genealogy  of  Morals,”  Nietzsche,  Vol.  I,  p.  II. 


206  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


It  was  no  wonder  that  this  man  glorified  war 
for  its  own  sake;  his  philosophy  compelled 
him  to  do  so. 

Treitschke  asserts  the  same  ideas,  though  in 
language  a  little  less  blunt.  “  It  makes  for 
health  that  the  nobler  race  should  absorb  the 
inferior  stock.”  16  “  No  other  .course  is  open 

to  us  but  to  keep  the  subject  race  in  as  un¬ 
civilized  a  condition  as  possible,  thus  prevent¬ 
ing  them  from  becoming  a  danger  to  their 
handful  of  conquerors.”  17 

It  was  because  Pastor  Baumgarten  was 
steeped  in  this  anti-Christian  set  of  ideas  that 
he  dared  to  write  the  words,  “  Whoever  can¬ 
not  prevail  upon  himself  to  approve  from  the 
bottom  of  his  heart  the  sinking  of  the  Lusi¬ 
tania — whoever  cannot  conquer  his  sense  of 
the  gigantic  cruelty  to  unnumbered  perfectly 
innocent  victims  .  .  .  and  give  himself 

up  to  honest  delight  at  this  victorious  exploit 
of  German  defensive  power — him  we  judge  to 
be  no  true  German.”  18 

It  was  because  Vierodt’s  mind  had  been  ut¬ 
terly  poisoned  with  this  false  philosophy  that 

16  “  Politics,”  H.  v.  Treitschke,  Vol.  I,  p.  121. 

17  Ibid.,  p.  122. 

18  “  German  Speeches  in  Difficult  Days,”  No.  24,  p.  7. 


THE  WITNESS  OF  HISTORY  207 


he  wrote  the  lines,  “  O  my  Germany,  into  thy 
soul  thou  must  etch  a  deep  and  indelible  hate; 
this  hate  thou  hast  lacked  for  a  long,  long  time. 
Retribution,  vengeance,  fury  are  demanded; 
stifle  in  thy  heart  all  human  feeling  and  hasten 
to  the  fight!  O  Germany,  hate!  Slaughter 
thy  foes  by  millions,  and  of  their  reeking 
corpses  build  a  monument  that  shall  reach  the 
clouds.  O  Germany,  hate  now!  ...  no 
prisoners !  Lock  all  their  lips  in  silence ;  turn 
our  neighbours’  lands  into  deserts,  O  Ger¬ 
many,  hate!  Salvation  will  come  with  thy 
wrath.  Beat  in  their  skulls  with  rifle-butts  and 
with  axes.  These  bandits  are  beasts  of  the 
chase,  they  are  not  men.  .  .  .  Strike  and 
thrust,  true  and  hard.  Battalions,  batteries, 
squadrons,  all  to  the  front!  Afterward  thou 
wilt  stand  erect  on  the  ruins  of  the  world, 
healed  forever  of  thy  ancient  madness,  of  thy 
love  for  the  alien.,,  19 

These  quotations  represent  the  kind  of 
teaching  to  which  the  German  people  were  ex^ 
posed  for  long  years  before  the  war.  That 
teaching  found  expression  in  colleges,  univer¬ 
sities,  public  schools,  the  press,  the  platform, 
and  the  political  forum.  It  became  part  of  the 

18  “Out  of  their  own  Mouths,”  p.  116. 


208  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


mental  and  emotional  furniture  of  a  great  part 
of  the  German  masses. 

Is  it  fair,  in  the  light  of  these  facts,  to  say 
that  the  war  is  evidence  of  the  breakdown  of 
Christianity?  Is  it  not  obvious  that  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Faith  was  repudiated  to  make  way  for  an 
alien  and  vicious  philosophy?  It  ill  becomes 
the  unbeliever  to  charge  the  World  War 
against  Christianity.  It  was  the  direct  product 
of  ideas  as  anti-Christian  as  any  ideas  could  be. 
We  might  just  as  fairly  charge  a  physician 
with  failure  when  the  patient  has  pushed  aside 
the  prescribed  remedy  and  drunk  deadly  poison 
in  its  stead.  The  war  proves  the  collapse  of 
everything  adopted  as  a  substitute  for  the  New 
Testament.  Germany  was  highly  efficient  in 
the  fields  of  art,  science,  commerce  and  eco¬ 
nomic  experiment,  but  these  did  not  save  her. 
Over  the  wreck  and  ruin  of  what  might  have 
been  a  glorious  empire  we  think  we  descry  the 
form  of  the  One  who  wept  over  the  city  that 
rejected  Him  in  the  days  of  long  ago,  and  to¬ 
day  He  seems  to  be  saying  to  this  fallen  na¬ 
tion,  “  If  thou  hadst  known,  even  thou,  at 
least  in  this  thy  day,  the  things  which  belong 
unto  thy  peace!  but  now  they  are  hid  from 
thine  eyes.”  The  World  War  stands  out  be- 


THE  WITNESS  OF  HISTORY  209 


fore  our  vision  as  the  direct  product  of 
thoughts,  ideas,  dreams,  ambitions  essentially 
anti-Christian.  To-day  we  dare  look  an  athe¬ 
istic  philosophy  in  the  face,  and  then,  pointing 
to  a  wrecked  and  bleeding  Europe  say,  “  This 
is  your  work.”  And  if  unbelief  is  honest  it 
will  make  no  reply. 

There  is  only  one  possible  sense  in  which  the 
contention  of  unbelief  can  have  meaning.  It 
may  be  thus  stated,  “  After  being  in  the  world 
for  nearly  nineteen  hundred  years,  always 
claiming  to  be  the  universal  and  final  religion, 
Christianity  failed  to  avert  the  war.”  Granted. 
But  we  contend  that  it  failed  because  it  was 
not  tried.  It  failed  because  it  was  repudiated. 
Should  an  Alpine  guide  give  his  explicit  direc¬ 
tions  to  the  climber,  and  should  the  latter  set 
them  aside  and  break  away  from  the  guide's 
company,  and  then  fall  to  his  death,  would  it 
be  fair  to  say  that  the  guide  had  failed  ?  Had 
the  guide  any  right  to  resort  to  coercion?  No, 
it  is  not  Christianity  that  has  failed ;  humanity 
has  failed  by  setting  it  aside.  The  unbeliever's 
contention  really  means,  “  Why  did  not  the 
Christian  Faith  compel  its  own  acceptance  and 
adoption?  ”  Because  in  the  spiritual  order  of 
things  coercion  has  no  place.  It  would  involve 


210  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


contradiction.  We  have  heard  an  indignant 
father  say  to  his  wilful  son,  “  I’ll  make  you.” 
And,  standing  over  the  child,  rod  in  hand,  the 
parent  has  compelled  obedience !  But  the  obe¬ 
dience  which  he  has  coerced  has  been  simply 
mechanical  and  formal,  devoid  of  all  spiritual 
meaning  and  value.  The  will  and  affection  of 
the  child  have  not  been  projected  into  the 
formal  act  of  assent.  God  has  never  said  to 
His  children,  “  I  will  make  you/’  A  forced 
virtue  is  no  virtue.  Christian  Faith  calls  for 
the  voluntary  dedication  of  life  to  its  ideals 
and  enterprises.  Obviously  this  cannot  be  se¬ 
cured  by  coercion.  If  this  simple  contention 
be  granted  it  will  be  obvious  that,  as  before 
stated,  the  war  has  proved,  not  the  failure  of 
the  Christian  religion,  but  the  failure  of  hu¬ 
manity  through  rejecting  it. 

The  argument  from  history  is  set  before 
every  truth-seeker  with  perfect  confidence. 
History  is  an  open  book.  Facts  are  the  fingers 
of  God.  The  apologist  may  wisely  step  aside 
leaving  truth  and  the  truth-seeker  alone.  If 
the  seeker  has  the  unbiased  mind  and  the  will¬ 
ing  heart,  the  Christian  advocate  will  have  no 
fear  of  the  result. 


VII 


THE  WORLD  AT  THE  CROSSROADS 


THE  World  War  has  shaken  Christian 
civilization  out  of  some  of  its  false 
securities  and  smug  satisfactions. 
As  the  smoke  and  dust  of  the  great  conflict 
slowly  vanish  we  can  see  a  few  outstanding 
facts  more  clearly  than  before.  In  more  ways 
than  one  the  world  seems  to  have  come  to  the 
crossroads.  It  almost  hesitates  to  move  for¬ 
ward,  fearing  it  may  make  the  wrong  turn. 
As  a  help  in  reaching  wise  decisions  it  may 
be  well  to  look  at  a  few  outstanding  truths. 


The  World-Situation  of  To-day  Calls 
for  a  Revision  of  Our  Ideas  of  Progress 

Never  has  the  world  moved  as  rapidly  as 
in  the  last  few  years.  The  material  side  of 
our  civilization  has  grown  almost  by  leaps  and 
bounds.  In  many  minds  this  has  created  a 
mistaken  sense  of  progress.  The  lower  forms 
of  growth  must  be  judged  by  the  higher. 
Only  the  progress  that  conforms  to  the  moral 


212  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


ideal  is  worthy  of  the  name.  We  can  travel 
through  space  much  faster  than  could  the  fa¬ 
thers  of  this  nation,  but,  as  we  step  off  our 
express  trains,  are  we  quite  sure  that  we  are 
finer  men  than  they  were  when  they  stepped 
out  of  the  stage-coach?  We  can  send  mes¬ 
sages  around  the  world  with  the  rapidity  of 
the  lightning’s  flash,  and  comparing  our  meth¬ 
ods  with  those  of  the  early  colonists  we  can 
easily  pride  ourselves  upon  our  material  gains. 
But  what  is  the  nature  of  the  messages  which 
we  transmit  so  quickly?  Have  they  more  of 
truth,  honour  and  nobleness  than  those  trans¬ 
mitted  by  slower  processes  a  few  generations 
ago?  The  World  War  was  fought  in  an  age 
when  the  material  forms  of  civilization  far 
surpassed  those  of  previous  ages.  This  fact 
only  added  to  the  terrors  and  tortures  of  the 
ordeal.  Unspiritualized  intelligence  enabled 
men  to  resort  to  deadly  gases,  fatal  bacteria, 
liquid  fire  and  other  new  and  frightful  meth¬ 
ods  of  destruction.  Since  the  signing  of  the 
armistice  it  has  been  confidently  stated  that 
science  has  discovered  far  more  deadly  forces 
than  any  hitherto  used,  and  that  in  the  event 
of  another  war  whole  cities,  inhabited  by  civil¬ 
ians  only,  could  be  wiped  out  of  existence  in 


THE  WORLD  AT  THE  CROSSROADS  213 


the  course  of  a  few  hours.  No  stronger  evi¬ 
dence  is  needed  to  show  that  the  lower  forms 
of  progress  may  be  an  added  menace  to  the 
world  unless  subjected  to  religious  control.  A 
lopsided  development  may  be  a  more  serious 
matter  than  an  arrested  development. 

Recent  history  has  disposed  of  an  idea  that 
found  a  place  in  much  of  our  loose  and  vain 
thinking.  It  is  not  easy  to  state  this  idea  since, 
as  a  rule,  it  was  not  carefully  defined.  Per¬ 
haps  it  was  more  of  a  mood,  an  attitude,  a 
tacit  yet  vague  assumption  rather  than  a 
clearly-defined  postulate  of  thought.  Put  into 
plain  words  it  might  be  stated  as  follows: 
“  Evolution  discloses  a  long  history  of  im¬ 
provement.  Things  have  moved  from  lower 
to  higher  stages,  from  crude  and  simple  forms 
to  forms  much  more  delicate  and  complex. 
This  has  been  achieved  by  forces  inherent  in 
the  nature  of  things,  and  therefore  progress 
has  been  spontaneous  and  automatic.  And  the 
process  will  continue,  of  course.  Progress  is 
assured  by  natural  and  inevitable  factors.” 

Surely  the  war  has  disposed  of  this  easy¬ 
going  view.  There  is  no  automatic  and  in¬ 
evitable  process  of  development.  Tennyson 
beheld  the  larger  truth  when  he  wrote: 


214  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 

Evolution,  ever  climbing  after  some  ideal  good, 
And  reversion  ever  dragging  evolution  in  the 
mud. 

Undoubtedly  there  has  been  improvement  in 
the  morals  and  manners  of  human  life,  but  it 
has  entailed  an  awful  cost.  Pain  has  been  part 
of  the  price  of  progress.  We  have  moved  up¬ 
ward  because  there  have  been  those  who  have 
been  willing  to  enter  Gethsemanes  and  climb 
Calvarys  for  the  good  of  the  world. 

Never  on  custom9 s  oiled  grooves 

The  world  to  a  higher  level  moves, 

sings  Whittier.  It  is  easy  to  repeat  the  fa¬ 
miliar  words,  “  Truth  is  mighty  and  will  pre¬ 
vail,”  but  what  do  the  words  mean?  If  they 
mean  that  there  is  some  infallible,  inexorable 
law  in  life  by  virtue  of  which  falsehood  is 
mechanically  destroyed,  to  be  replaced  by 
truth,  the  proposition  may  be  safely  denied. 
Truth  has  never  prevailed  except  as  lovers  of 
truth  have  toiled,  suffered  and  died  to  make  it 
prevail.  “  Right  will  overcome  wrong.”  It 
will,  if  righteous  men  are  willing  to  do  more, 
endure  more,  and  suffer  more  for  the  sake  of 
right  than  wicked  men  are  willing  to  face  in 
the  interests  of  wrong.  All  this  is  only  an- 


THE  WORLD  AT  THE  CROSSROADS  215 


other  way  of  demanding  that  Determinism  be 
displaced  from  our  modern  thinking,  and  that 
freedom  be  restored  to  its  place  of  rightful 
authority.  Unbelief  must  face  this  issue.  It 
cannot  consistently  hold  to1  its  position  with¬ 
out  denying  the  free  will  of  man,  leaving  the 
priceless  interests  of  the  race  at  the  mercy  of 
blind,  pitiless  and  impersonal  forces  which 
work,  as  Tennyson  has  reminded  us,  “  without 
a  conscience  or  an  aim.” 

An  able  thinker  has  said,  “  Freedom  is  the 
essence  of  our  personality.  To  act  freely,  not 
as  the  plaything  of  impulses,  but  according  to 
an  idea  of  law  which  our  own  reason  has  laid 
down  for  us,  is  to  be  a  person,  and  not  a 
thing.”  1 

The  unbeliever  cannot  escape  the  awkward 
situation  in  which  he  stands  to-day.  He  must 
meet  this  problem,  “  How  can  I  deny  the 
validity  and  reality  of  religion  and  yet  hold 
logically  to  human  personality?  Am  I  not 
compelled  to  dethrone  freedom  and  bow  down 
before  Determinism?”  Dare  unbelief  pay 
such  a  price  for  its  aloofness  from  faith?  In 
any  case,  the  idea  that  the  progress  of  man- 

laThe  Problem  of  Faith  and  Freedom,”  John  Oman, 
D.  D.,  p.  176. 


216  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


kind  is  guaranteed  by  some  inherent  and  auto¬ 
matic  forces  working  toward  an  inevitable  goal 
has  been  utterly,  and  we  hope  finally,  discred¬ 
ited. 

Many  people  do  not  see  the  logical  conse¬ 
quences  in  the  premises  of  unbelief,  with  the 
result  that  these  premises  are  lightly  assumed. 
It  is  well  for  us  to  remember  that  we  are  deal¬ 
ing  with  something  more  than  abstract  ques¬ 
tions.  The  implications  which  are  inherent  in 
unbelief  go  to  the  roots  of  practical  matters. 
An  eminent  agnostic  writer,  Cotter  Morison, 
makes  some  frank  admissions,  as  quoted  by 
Prebendary  Row  in  the  latter’s  work  on 
“  Christian  Theism.” 

“  Necessary  law  reigns  in  the  moral  world, 
and  men  are  under  a  delusion  in  imagining 
themselves  free  agents. 

“Good  men  and  bad  men  are  irresponsible  for 
the  goodness  and  the  badness  of  their  actions; 
the  good  and  the  evil  which  is  in  them  being  the 
necessary  result  of  the  conditions  of  their  birth 
and  their  surroundings. 

“  It  is  impossible  for  a  man  by  any  act  of  his 
own  to  modify  his  character,  which  has  been 
formed  for  him  and  not  by  him. 

“  What  we  call  a  bad  man  is  no  more  respon- 


THE  WORLD  AT  THE  CROSSROADS  217 


sible  for  the  evil  which  he  does  than  an  engine 
is  for  killing  a  man  who  trespasses  on  the  rails. 

“  All  efforts  to  succour  the  weak  and  the 
miserable  are  an  interference  with  the  laws  of 
evolution,  which,  if  not  interfered  with,  would 
crush  them  out  of  existence. 

“  All  attempts  to  convert  the  evil  man  from 
the  evil  of  his  ways  are  so  much  lost  labour. 

“  The  sooner  we  get  rid  of  the  idea  of  re¬ 
sponsibility  the  better  it  will  be  for  society, 
and  moral  education. 

“  The  Christian  doctrine  of  forgiveness 
of  sins  is  pernicious,  and  destructive  of  the 
best  interests  of  society.”  2 

These  and  similar  conclusions  are  involved 
in  the  premises  of  unbelief.  It  may  be  said  in 
reply  that  many  unbelievers  do  not  hold  such 
views,  but  that  is  because  they  do  not  think 
logically.  If  behind  matter  and  force  there 
be  no  supreme  Personality; — no  mind  that 
thinks,  no  will  that  determines,  no  love  that 
redeems,  no  power  that  saves,  then  we  are 
obviously  living  in  a  purely  material  and 
mechanical  universe,  and  what  we  call  the 
moral  world  is  dominated  only  by  matter  and 
2  “  Christian  Theism,”  Prebendary  Row,  pp.  207,  208. 


218  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 

motion.  In  that  case  where  can  we  find  log¬ 
ical  escape  from  Morison’s  admissions  ?  Can¬ 
not  unbelievers  see  that  the  terrible  conse¬ 
quences  which  logically  follow  from  the  prem¬ 
ises  of  unbelief  should  be  enough  to  overthrow 
those  premises  ?  The  unbeliever  cannot  carry 
the  system  of  unbelief  in  one  hand,  and  the 
mysteries  and  dynamics  of  faith  in  the  other. 

The  Great  Humanitarian  Ministries 
Initiated  by  Religion  Will  Not  Long 

Survive  the  Destruction  of  Religion 

Some  time  ago  the  writer  was  driving 
through  a  beautiful  part  of  New  York  State. 
It  was  in  the  month  of  September.  An  abun¬ 
dance  of  fruit  was  ripening  in  the  orchards. 
Presently  we  came  to  a  sight  which  arrested 
attention.  Evidently  a  violent  wind-storm  had 
swept  through  a  large  orchard  and  had  up¬ 
rooted  nearly  half  the  trees.  They  had  all 
fallen  in  a  northern  direction,  showing  that 
the  wind  had  come  from  the  south.  The  fruit 
was  still  ripening  upon  the  branches,  and  the 
prospects  were  favourable  for  an  excellent 
crop  of  apples  even  from  these  fallen  trees. 
There  was  a  certain  measure  of  unexpended 
vitality  in  each  tree  upon  which  the  still  un- 


THE  WORLD  AT  THE  CROSSROADS  219 


ripened  fruit  might  draw.  But  what  were  the 
prospects  for  next  autumn,  and  the  autumns 
which  will  follow  ?  Living  fruit  will  not  grow 
upon  dead  trees.  The  outstanding  ministries 
of  philanthropy  have  grown  out  of  religious 
motives  and  sanctions.  The  religion  of  the 
Cross  has  inspired  redeeming  service.  Un¬ 
counted  hosts  of  noble  men  and  women  have 
sought  to  show  their  devotion  to  their  Lord 
by  serving  those  for  whom  He  died.  But  if 
unbelief  should  ever  succeed  in  destroying 
faith,  these  ministries  of  mercy  and  love  would 
inevitably  perish  with  the  faith  that  had  called 
them  into  being.  A  fly-wheel  may  continue  to 
revolve  for  a  time  after  the  motive  power  of 
the  engine  is  shut  off:  it  does  this  by  the 
energy  of  acquired  momentum.  But  the  pe¬ 
riod  of  such  action  is  brief ;  soon  it  comes  to  a 
standstill.  Religion  has  been  and  still  is  the 
dynamic  of  all  those  higher  ministries  of  serv¬ 
ice  which  have  helped  to  heal  and  hallow  the 
life  of  the  world.  Let  that  driving  energy  be 
withdrawn  and  the  results  may  be  foreseen. 
The  missionary  will  be  recalled  from  the 
frontiers  of  civilization,  and  from  the  world’s 
darkest  places.  The  slum-worker  will  vacate 
the  slum,  leaving  its  denizens  to  their  pitiless 


220  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


surroundings.  Organized  relief  for  the 
stricken  and  starving  sons  of  men  will  quietly 
but  surely  cease  to  function.  Sacrificial  serv¬ 
ice  in  the  interests  of  the  crippled,  the  blinded, 
the  maimed  and  the  crushed  will  become  a 
thing  of  the  past.  The  holy  compassion  which, 
at  the  promptings  of  Jesus,  has  built  hospitals, 
almshouses,  orphanages,  rescue  missions,  Flor¬ 
ence  Crittenden  Homes,  Dr.  Barnardo  Homes 
and  countless  institutions  of  kindred  temper 
and  purpose,  will  cease  to  throb  when  the 
Cross  is  relegated,  as  certain  forms  of  unbelief 
seek  to  relegate  it,  to  the  level  of  an  antiquated 
totem  pole.  The  Christian  dynamic  ceases 
when  the  Christian  Faith  is  destroyed. 

In  vain  will  unbelief  seek  compensation  for 
such  disaster  from  some  improved  form  of 
State  life.  The  most  elaborate  dogmas  of  So¬ 
cialism  when  embodied  in  the  State  will  be 
unable  to  furnish  spiritual  motives  inspiring 
men  and  women  to  grapple  with  broken  hearts 
and  shattered  lives.  The  winds  will  blow  from 
the  east,  the  storms  will  beat,  the  tempests 
will  crash,  and  tragedies  will  gather  about 
mankind  even  in  the  most  perfect  Socialistic 
State  that  any  group  of  thinkers  can  fashion. 
Witness  Russia  to-day.  And  Socialism,  as 


THE  WORLD  AT  THE  CROSSROADS  221 


such,  can  furnish  no  such  motives  as  those 
which  have  been  inspired  by  the  revelation  of 
God  in  Christ  as  a  Suffering  Redeemer. 

Does  unbelief  feel  itself  free  to  contribute 
to  such  a  debacle  of  history? 

We  Have  Come  to  the  Stage  Where 
Unbelief  is  Assuming  Aggressive  Forms 

It  is  no  longer  content  with  an  attitude  of 
quiet  dissent.  It  is  not  satisfied  with  a  posi¬ 
tion  of  aloofness.  It  is  becoming  increasingly 
militant.  More  and  more  it  is  assuming  the 
temper  of  a  crusade.  The  Russia  of  to-day  is 
an  object  lesson  of  this  fact.  Religion  is  under 
the  ban.  Teachers  of  religion  have  been  per¬ 
secuted  and  martyred,  not  because  of  any 
criminal  involvements,  but  simply  because  of 
their  adherence  to  the  Faith.  The  Russian 
Christmas  Day  of  this  year  (January  6,  1923) 
was  officially  turned  into  a  day  of  anti-religious 
demonstration.  The  whole  degrading  per¬ 
formance  was  staged  and  executed  under  State 
supervision.  An  effigy,  six  feet  in  length, 
stuffed  with  straw,  with  a  skull-cap  and  knee- 
boots,  which  represented  the  Communistic  con¬ 
ception  of  the  Deity,  was  publicly  burned  amid 
the  laughter  and  derision  of  great  crowds. 


222  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


Another  scene  was  a  caricature  of  the  mirac¬ 
ulous  conception  of  Jesus,  with  the  Virgin 
Mary  as  the  chief  heroine.  Every  part  of  the 
anti-Christian  gala  day  was  marked  by  a  spirit 
of  bitter  hostility  to  all  the  truths  and  claims 
of  religion. 

The  Russians  have  never  been  known  as  an 
exceptionally  cruel  people.  Indeed  we  have 
generally  credited  them  with  much  of  simple 
kindliness,  patience  and  generosity.  This  out¬ 
break  of  savage  fury  against  religion,  espe¬ 
cially  the  Christian  religion,  cannot  be  regarded 
as  some  racial  freak.  It  is  rather  an  evidence 
of  the  new  mood  of  atheism.  The  restraints 
of  faith  have  become  uncomfortable;  the  high 
ideals  of  faith  have  become  the  source  of  irri¬ 
tation  ;  the  Cross  has  become  an  offence.  More 
and  more  unbelief  is  resorting  to  a  spirit  of 
fierce  resentment.  What  it  has  done  in  Russia 
it  may  do  elsewhere.  There  are  groups  and 
cults  in  our  own  country  whose  pronounce¬ 
ments  are  sinister,  to  say  the  least.  The  I.  W. 
W.  represent  a  body  of  men  steeped  in  the 
spirit  of  unbelief,  and  the  Communist  party 
is  still  more  openly  and  avowedly  atheistic. 
No  religious  restraints  will  hold  them  back 
from  dark  deeds  in  our  own  land  should  suit- 


THE  WORLD  AT  THE  CROSSROADS  223 


able  opportunities  be  offered.  Here  is  one  of 
their  pronouncements:  “  How  can  the  prole¬ 
tarian  revolution  be  achieved?  By  peaceful 
means  ?  There  is  only  one  way  to  achieve  the 
proletarian  revolution,  and  that  is  by  the  mass 
action  of  the  armed  workers  in  open  insurrec¬ 
tion  and  civil  war  against  the  government, — its 
army,  navy,  police,  etc.”  3  Many  unbelievers 
may  awake  on  the  morning  of  some  dark  day 
to  discover  that  the  restraints  of  religion  can¬ 
not  be  maintained  when  the  truths  of  religion 
are  discarded.  We  are  living  in  an  era  of 
revolt.  Authority  is  resented.  Discipline  is 
unwelcome.  Restraints  are  repudiated.  This 
temper  has  invaded  the  realms  of  art,  litera¬ 
ture,  politics  and  society.  In  nearly  all  direc¬ 
tions  liberty  is  being  construed  in  terms  of 
license.  This  may  be  but  a  transient  phase 
through  which  we  are  passing ;  it  may  be  some¬ 
thing  more  serious.  Will  the  enfranchised 
masses  of  our  modern  world  choose  the  path 
of  order,  restraint,  loyalty  to  authority,  accept¬ 
ance  of  discipline,  dedication  to  ideals?  Or 
will  they  crowd  the  pathways  of  license,  in¬ 
dulgence  and  unrestrained  self-expression?  Is 
conscience  or  impulse  to  rule  in  individual  life? 

8  “  Proletarian  Revolution  or  Wage  Slavery,”  p.  3. 


224  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


Is  materialism  or  idealism  to  control  group 
life?  The  probability  is  that  many  an  unbe¬ 
liever  does  not  clearly  see  the  implications  of 
his  position.  He  does  not  seem  to  appreciate 
the  fact  that  in  casting  doubt,  and  even  denial 
upon  the  truths  of  religious  experience  he  is 
helping  to  destroy  the  restraints  and  incentives 
of  faith,  with  all  that  that  may  mean  upon  the 
life  of  the  world  at  this  time.  Dare  he  assume 
this  responsibility? 

To-day  the  World  is  Calling  for  a  Min¬ 
istry  of  Reconciliation  Among  All 
Sincere  Lovers  of  Truth 

As  we  look  out  upon  the  possibilities  and  the 
perils  of  the  world  of  to-day  we  behold  an  un¬ 
seemly  wrangle,  even  a  bitter  fight  between  the 
lovers  of  truth.  Does  not  this  loom  up  before 
us  as  the  greatest  tragedy  of  the  age?  Does 
not  the  situation  call  for  a  great  reconciling 
ministry  between  the  deepest  experience  of 
Faith  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  verified  results 
of  Science  on  the  other?  The  bells  in  the 
belfry  of  Science  and  those  in  the  belfry  of 
Theology  have  been  sending  forth  jangling  and 
discordant  noises  long  enough.  There  have 
been  faults  on  both  sides.  Undoubtedly  the- 


THE  W OKED  AT  THE  CROSSROADS  225 


ology  has  unduly  emphasized  the  setting  and 
framework  of  Divine  truth.  It  has  attached 
as  much  value  to  the  case  as  to  the  jewel.  It 
has  often  failed  to  discriminate  between  the 
frame  and  the  picture.  It  has  frequently  as¬ 
sumed  an  infallible  knowledge  of  astronomy, 
geology  and  biology  on  the  part  of  the  Bible 
writers,  whereas  it  should  have  been  obvious 
that  such  infallibility  on  their  part  would  have 
made  their  writings  unintelligible  to  the  world 
of  their  day.  They  had  to  use  such  imperfect 
knowledge  as  they  possessed  as  the  channel  for 
the  spiritual  ideals  and  messages  with  which 
they  have  enriched  the  world.  Undoubtedly 
those  of  us  who  dwell  in  the  camp  of  faith 
have  been  too  prone  to  find  the  presence  and 
power  of  God  in  solitary,  detached  and  arbi¬ 
trary  experiences  which  we  have  called  miracle. 
In  saying  this  we  are  not  denying  miracle. 
Every  alleged  miracle  must  be  judged  by  its 
evidence.  The  situation  has  been  stated  with 
great  clearness  and  fairness  by  Dr.  Kelman: 
“We  shall  never  begin  to  understand  God 
until  we  grasp  the  one  obvious  certainty  that 
God  is  forever  working,  not  for  the  mo¬ 
ment,  but  for  the  long  result.  Seeing  the  end 
from  the  beginning,  His  purpose  works  to- 


226  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


ward  that  far-off  goal,  and  does  not  swerve 
from  its  course.  If  we  understood  all,  it 
would  be  plain  to  us  that  this  is  not  only  the 
better,  but  the  only  possible  way,  in  which  a 
universe  can  be  managed.  Even  for  our  own 
sakes,  one  can  see  how  absolutely  necessary  it 
is  that  there  should  be  an  order  upon  which 
man  may  count,  and  by  which  he  may  guide 
his  course  through  life.  Were  our  human  his¬ 
tory  managed  upon  the  principle  of  perpetually 
recurring  interferences  for  the  sake  of  this  or 
that  one  of  the  countless  myriads  of  men,  it 
would  be  impossible  for  any  one  to  accom¬ 
modate  himself  to  so  unstable  and  irregular  a 
world.”  4  These  words  go  a  considerable  way 
toward  a  recognition  of  that  principle  of  uni¬ 
versal  law  upon  which  science  justly  lays  em¬ 
phasis.  Those  of  us  who  are  fighting  the  bat¬ 
tles  of  Faith  must  recognize  the  patience,  the 
amazing  industry  and  the  sincerity  of  motive 
which  have  marked  the  labours  of  those  who 
have  sought  to  interpret  the  facts  and  forces 
of  the  material  universe. 

In  return  we  ask  that  Science  shall  lay  aside 
all  forms  of  bias  against  the  deepest  experi- 

4  “  The  Foundations  of  Faith,”  John  Kelman,  D.  D., 
pp.  170-171. 


THE  WORLD  AT  THE  CROSSROADS  227 


ences  of  religion,  patiently  studying  the  tre¬ 
mendous  part  that  religion  has  played  in  hu¬ 
man  history.  In  questioning  the  claims  of  in¬ 
fallibility  sometimes  asserted  by  Faith  it  must 
beware  lest  it  cultivate  an  infallibility  of  its 
own.  It  can  well  afford  to  treat  the  claims  of 
Faith  with  a  little  more  courtesy  and  respect. 
There  will  be  nothing  derogatory  to  Science  if 
those  who  are  most  devoted  to  its  pursuit  will 
but  admit  when  confronted  with  the  beneficent 
achievements  of  Faith,  “  Here  is  something 
which  Science  cannot  explain.”  Mr.  Glad¬ 
stone  once  declared  in  the  British  House  of 
Commons,  “  Truth  is  the  expression  of  the 
Divine  mind.”  That  expression  is  found  both 
in  nature  and  in  the  deepest  experiences  of  the 
soul.  A  common  love  of  truth  should  do  much 
toward  establishing  more  peaceful  relations 
among  truth-seekers.  In  the  mutual  admis¬ 
sion  of  their  own  limitations  the  Christian  the¬ 
ologian  and  the  scientist  may  find  common 
ground  where  a  fabric  of  enduring  friendship 
may  be  built. 


228  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


At  This  Critical  Hour  the  One  Out- 
Standing  Need  of  the  World  is  a 
Great  Quickening  of  True 
Religion 

Every  age  has  its  own  problems  and  perils, 
but  there  seems  to  be  a  general  consensus  of 
sound  opinion  that  this  is  an  exceptionally 
critical  period.  The  forces  making  for  world¬ 
wide  trouble  are  strong,  and  in  many  cases  un¬ 
scrupulous.  The  world’s  greatest  statesmen 
are  perplexed.  The  years  that  have  followed 
the  armistice  tell  their  own  pitiful  story  of 
withered  hopes  and  broken  plans.  The  mis¬ 
chief-maker  is  abroad.  The  disintegrating 
energies  of  unbridled  individualism  and  rabid 
nationalism  create  an  atmosphere  of  world¬ 
wide  peril.  The  statesmanship  that  is  con¬ 
structive  in  aim  and  conciliatory  in  temper 
finds  itself  baffled  at  nearly  every  turn.  Even 
genius  cannot  improvise  the  spirit  of  good-will, 
and  without  that  spirit  civilization  finds  itself 
threatened  with  something  approaching  a  dead¬ 
lock.  The  world  could  live  a  relatively  happy 
life  for  many  years  to  come  without  any  new 
inventions,  devices,  or  material  discoveries, 
providing  its  mood  could  be  changed.  That  is 


THE  WOELD  AT  THE  CKOSSBOADS  229 


only  another  way  of  saying  (to  use  religious 
terms)  that  the  world’s  greatest  need  to-day  is 
a  change  of  heart. 

Imagine  what  would  happen  if  the  Gospel  of 
good-will  could  be  enthroned  above  all  the 
clashing  and  competing  interests  of  earth  and 
time!  Cannot  the  unbeliever  see  that  if  re¬ 
ligion  fails,  everything  fails?  Everything  else 
has  failed.  Christianity  is  to-day  pleading  for 
a  fair  trial.  Let  the  sceptre  of  world-sover¬ 
eignty  be  placed  in  the  nail-pierced  hand.  Let 
the  crown  of  world  lordship  and  leadership  be 
worn  on  the  brow  that  was  once  crowned  with 
thorns.  The  unbeliever  will  be  guilty  of  no 
inconsistency  by  saying,  “  After  all,  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Faith  is  the  highest  and  best  that  we 
know;  and  whatever  my  doubts  may  be  I  can 
never  disprove  its  historic  basis,  while  I  am 
compelled  to  admit  its  moral  values.  I  will 
therefore  assume  its  probable  truth  and  trust 
myself  to  it,  as  the  sailor  trusts  his  ship  to  the 
waves.”  Such  an  adventure  is  of  the  essence 
of  faith.  All  who  seek  the  world’s  highest 
good  should  be  pulling  together.  There  ought 
to  be  a  platform  sufficiently  strong  and  broad 
on  which  the  sincere  believer  and  the  honest 
doubter  can  stand  in  their  loyalty  to  the  clear- 


230  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


est  light.  “We  needs  must  love  the  highest 
when  we  see  it,”  and  it  is  because  the  Chris¬ 
tian  believer  is  morally  certain  that  his  Faith, 
with  its  glowing  ideals  and  its  holy  achieve¬ 
ments,  represents  the  highest,  that  he  ventures 
to  call  across  the  margin  that  separates  him 
from  the  unbeliever,  “  Join  with  us  in  our  mis¬ 
sion  to  bring  this  sinning  and  sorrowing  world 
into  obedience  to  the  Highest  One,  even  though 
your  faith  in  Him  be  far  less  robust  than 
ours.” 

Many  unbelievers  would  be  thoroughly 
alarmed  if  assured  that  the  Christian  Faith  was 
on  the  verge  of  complete  destruction.  These 
people  have  no  wish  to  live  their  lives  where 
the  sound  of  the  church  bell  is  never  heard, 
and  where  the  Gospel  of  Divine  mercy  is  never 
preached.  There  are  distant  lands  where  such 
conditions  obtain.  Think  of  Thibet.  There 
the  sun  shines,  the  winds  blow,  the  showers 
water  the  earth,  the  seasons  come  and  go,  but 
how  many  of  our  acquaintances  propose  to 
emigrate  to  such  a  land  ?  Suppose  the  sceptic’s 
dream  were  to  be  fulfilled.  Let  the  house  of 
worship  be  turned  into  a  factory  and  the  Sab¬ 
bath  school  into  a  warehouse.  Let  the  story 
of  the  Cross  be  banished  and  the  voice  of 


THE  WORLD  AT  THE  CROSSROADS  231 


prayer  forever  silenced.  Let  all  spiritual  ap¬ 
peals  and  sanctions  be  tossed  upon  the  world’s 
rubbish  heap.  Let  all  the  ties  of  religion  be 
broken,  and  its  ministries  annihilated.  This, 
of  course,  would  be  the  logical  and  inevitable 
issue  of  the  sceptic’s  position.  Our  appeal  to 
him  is  surely  obvious:  would  he  care  to  live  in 
such  a  world?  Not  if  he  accepts  the  poet’s 
thought,  “We  needs  must  love  the  highest 
when  we  see  it.” 

The  world  is  at  the  Crossroads.  Let  the. 
unbeliever  be  careful  in  which  direction  he 
throws  the  weight  of  his  influence.  Humanity 
cannot  continue  much  longer  living  in  a  realm 
of  divided  counsels  and  conflicting  leaderships. 
More  and  more  it  will  move  toward  naked  ma¬ 
terialism  or  splendid  idealism,  rank  scepticism 
or  shining  faith,  withering  cynicism  or  world- 
service.  If  the  world  thinks  logically,  coher¬ 
ently  and  consistently  it  must  follow  Christ  or 
Nietzsche.  Facing  this  grim  alternative  even 
the  modest  doubter  cannot  be  exempted  from 
personal  decision.  Before  that  decision  is 
finally  made  let  him  remember  the  underlying 
thought  of  these  pages:  whatever  may  be  the 
burdens  of  Faith,  the  burdens  of  unbelief  are 
greater.  It  was  a  confused,  bewildered,  baffled 


232  THE  CHRISTIAN  CREDENTIALS 


man  who  cried  out,  almost  in  torture,  “  Lord, 
to  whom  shall  we  go  but  unto  Thee.”  Man 
must  go  somewhere.  Is  it  to  be  Christ  or 
Nietzsche?  This  is  the  choice  that  seems  log¬ 
ical,  if  not  inevitable. 

The  destinies  at  stake  are  beyond  all  human 
measurement.  Ideas  and  principles  must  be 
judged  by  this  tendency.  Christian  Faith  is 
directed  toward  God’s  shining  uplands ;  its  goal 
is  a  regenerated  and  glorified  humanity.  Un¬ 
belief  cannot  share  this  destiny:  its  face  is  in¬ 
evitably  set  in  an  opposite  direction.  It  can¬ 
not  escape  its  own  fate,  which  is  a  return  to 
that  cosmic  process,  “  red  in  tooth  and  claw/’ 
from  which  even  Huxley  shrank. 

We  close  this  volume  with  the  words  with 
which  Dean  Church  closed  his  book  on  “  Chris¬ 
tianity  and  Civilization.”  “  In  our  eagerness 
for  improvement,  it  concerns  us  to  be  on  our 
guard  against  the  temptation  of  thinking  that 
we  can  have  the  fruit  or  the  flower  and  yet 
destroy  the  root;  that  we  may  retain  the  high 
view  of  human  nature  which  has  grown  with 
the  growth  of  Christian  nations,  and  discard 
that  revelation  of  Divine  love  and  human 
destiny  of  which  that  view  forms  a  part  or  a 


THE  WORLD  AT  THE  CROSSROADS  233 


consequence;  that  we  may  retain  the  moral 
energy,  and  yet  make  light  of  the  faith  that 
produced  it.  It  concerns  us  to  remember, 
amid  the  splendours  and  vastness  of  a  nature, 
and  of  a  social  state,  which  to  us,  as  individ¬ 
uals,  are  both  so  transitory,  that  first  and  above 
everything  we  are  moral  and  religious  beings, 
trusted  with  will,  made  for  immortality.  It 
concerns  us  that  we  do  not  despise  our  birth¬ 
right,  and  cast  away  our  heritage  of  gifts  and 
of  powers,  which  we  may  lose,  but  not  re- 

JJ  6 

cover. 

5  “  Christianity  and  Civilization,”  Dean  R.  W.  Church, 
p.  143- 


Printed  tn  the  United  States  of  America 


HELPFUL  SERMONS 


JAMES I.  VANCE ,  D.D. ,  LL.D. 

Pastor  First  Presbyterian  Church ,  Nashville,  Tenn. 

In  the  Breaking  of  the  Bread 

Communion  Addresses.  $1.25. 

“A  volume  of  communion  addresses  marked  by  deep 
spiritual  insight  and  knowledge  of  the  human  heart.  They 
are  well  adapted  to  awaken  the  spiritual  conceptions  which 
should  accompany  the  observance  of  the  Lord’s  Supper — 
suggestions  fitted  for  a  communion  occasion.  The  ad¬ 
dresses  all  bear  upon  the  genexal  theme  of  the  Lord’s  Sup¬ 
per  and  showed  marked  spirituality  of  thought  and  fervency 
of  expression.” — United  Presbyterian. 


TEUNIS  E.  GOUJVENS  Pastor  Second  Presbyterian 
1  Church ,  Louisville,  Ky, 

The  Rock  That  Is  Higher 

And  Other  Addresses.  $1.25. 

An  unusually  successful  volume  of  discourses  of  which 
Dr.  Charles  S.  Macfarland  of  the  Church  Federal  Council, 
says:  “Contents  the  intellect  because  it  first  satisfies  the 
heart,  and  commands  the  incontestable  assent  of  human 

experience .  As  I  have  read  it  I  have  found  my 

conscience  penetrated,  my  faith  deepened  and  my  hope 
quickened.” 


W.  RUSSELL  BOWIE ,  D.D , 

Rector  of  St.  Paul's  Church,  Richmond,  Va. 

The  Road  of  the  Star 

and  Other  Sermons.  $1.50. 

A  volume  of  addresses  which  bring  the  message  of 
Christianity  with  fresh  and  kindling  interpretation  to  the 
immediate  needs  of  men.  The  extraordinary  distinction 
of  Dr.  Bowie’s  preaching  rises  from  the  fact  that  to 
great  vigor  of  thought  he  has  added  the  winged  power  of 
an  imagination  essentially  poetic. 


JOSEPH  JUDSON  TAYLOR ,  D.D. ,  LL.D, 

Author  of  “  The  Sabbatic  Question “  The  God  of  War,"  etc. 

Radiant  Hopefulness 

$1.00. 

A  message  of  enheartenment,  a  word  of  cheer,  for  men 
end  women  whose  hearts  have  been  fearful,  whose  spirits 
have  been  shaken  in  the  turbulent  times  through  which 
the  world  has  passed  in  recent  years,  with  which  man¬ 
kind  still  finds  itself  faced.  In  this  volume  of  addresses, 
Dr.  Taylor  points  the  way  to  comfort  amid  confusion,  to 
peaceful  harborage  amid  the  prevailing  storm. 


STANDARD  REFERENCE  WORKS 


G.  B.  F.  HALLOCK  Editor  of  “ The  Expositor 

A  Modem  Cyclopedia  of  Illus¬ 
trations  for  All  Occasions 

Nineteen  Hundred  and  Thirty-eight  Illustrations. 

$3.00. 

A  comprehensive  collection  of  illustrative  incidents, 
anecdotes  and  other  suggestive  material  for  the  outstanding 
days  and  seasons  of  the  church  year.  The  author,  well- 
known  to  the  readers  of  “The  Expositor has  presented 
a  really  valuable  handbook  for  Preachers,  Sunday  School 
Superintendents  and  all  Christian  workers. 

JAMES  INGLIS 

The  Bible  Text  Cyclopedia 

A  Complete  Classification  of  Scripture  Texts. 
New  Edition.  Earge  8vo,  $2.00 

“More  sensible  and  convenient,  and  every  way  more 
satisfactory  than  any  book  of  the  kind  we  have  ever 
known.  We  know  of  no  other  work  comparable  witll 
it  in  this  department  of  study.” — Sunday  School  Times < 

ANGUS-GREEN 

Cyclopedic  Handbook  to  the  Bible 

By  Joseph  Angus.  Revised  by  Samuel  G.  Green. 

New  Edition.  832  pages,  with  Index,  $3.00. 

‘‘The  Best  thing  in  its  line.” — Ira  M.  Price,  Univ.  of 
Chicago. 

“Holds  an  unchallenged  place  among  aids  to  the  intei» 
pretation  of  the  Scriptures.” — Baptist  Review  and  Ex» 
positor. 

“Of  immense  service  to  Biblical  students.” — Methodist 
Times. 

The  Treasury  of  Scripture  Knowledge 

Introduction  by  R.  A.  Torrey 
Consisting  of  500,000  Scripture  References  and 
Parallel  Passages.  788  pages.  8vo.  Cloth.  $3.00. 

“Bible  students  who  desire  to  compare  Scripture  with 
Scripture  will  find  the  ‘Treasury’  to  be  a  better  help  than 
any  other  book  of  which  I  have  any  knowledge.” — R.  R. 
McBurney,  Former  Gen.  Sec.,  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  New  York. 

A.  R.  BUCKLAND,  Editor 

Universal  Bible  Dictionary 

51 1  pages.  8vo.  Cloth.  $3.00. 

Dr.  Campbell  Morgan  says:  “Clear,  concise,  compre¬ 
hensive.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  if  any  student 
would  take  the  Bible,  and  go  through  it  book  by  book  with 
its  aid-,  the  gain  would  be  enormous.” 


RELIGIOUS  BOOKS  OF  THE  HOUR 


HON.  WILLIAM  JENNINGS  BRYAN 

*  Former  Secretary  of  State. 

In  His  Image 

James  Sprunt  Lectures ,  1921.  $1.75. 

New  York  Herald  says:  “This  book  is  an  event  of 
importance.  The  author  is  spokesman  for  a  large  seg* 
ment  of  the  people,  and  his  work  is  a  frank,  vigorous, 
often  eloquent  appeal  to  revelation  to  the  Bible  accepted 

literally  as  the  supreme  teacher _ Modern  science  does 

not  yield  readily  to  any  incantation  or  magic  formula, 
but  it  will  be  ill-advised  if  it  underestimates  the  poten¬ 
tialities  of  a  Byranized  education . Mr.  Bryan  has 

the  courage  of  his  convictions  and  realizes  that  revealed 
religion  must  rest  squarely  upon  the  validity  of  its 
revelation.” 

S.  A.  STEEL ,  D.D. 

The  Modern  Theory  of  the  Bible 

$1.25. 

“The  theory  of  modern  rationalists  is  here  answered. 
The  author  is  an  unflinching  believer  in  the  divine  inspira¬ 
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and  ability  and  attractiveness.  It  is  refreshing  to  take  up 
a  volume  of  such  virility  and  Christian  loyalty  to  divine 
truth.” — Herald  and  Presbyter. 

WILLIAM  BANCROFT  HILL 

Professor  of  Biblical  Literature  in  Vassar  College 

The  Apostolic  Age 

A  Study  of  the  Early  Church  and  its  Achieve¬ 
ments.  $2.00 

Dr.  Hill,  author  of  “The  Iflfe  of  Christ,”  furnishes  a 
careful  and  an  exhaustive  study  of  the  dawn-time  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,  in  v/hich  he  analyzes  with  great  wealth  of  detail, 
the  methods  adopted  and  followed  by  the  first  heroes  of 
the  Cross.  The  author  believes  the  Apostolic  Age  was  the 
supremely  great  missionary  age  of  the  Church  and  should 
be  studied  as  such. 

JAMES  E.  DARBY,  D.D.  Pastor  First  Baptist  Church 
"  1  ■  New  Brighton ,  Pa. 

Jesus  an  Economic  Mediator 

God’s  Remedy  for  Industrial  and  International  Ills. 

$1.50. 

“Mr.  Moody  in  his  day  felt  that  the  Church  had  lost  its 
grip  on  the  masses.  He  thought  he  saw  the  chasm  growing 
wiaer  every  day.  Mr.  Moody  was  not  alone  in  his  criti¬ 
cism.  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  a  large  body  of  workers 
criticize  the  Church  as  organized.  They  believe  that  she 
is  supported  by  the  privileged  class.  Dr.  Darby’s  book  will 
go  far  toward  removing  that  reproach,  if  leaders  in  both 
camps — labor  and  capital,  will  study  his  message.” — Chris¬ 
tian  Index. 


CHURCH  WORK 


ROGER  W.  BABSON 


Author  of 

" Fundamentals  of  Prosperity," etc. 


New  Tasks  for  Old  Churches 


Cloth,  $1.00.  Paper,  lj(  6oc. 

Suggestions  for  the  solution  of  to-day’s  problems,  clear- 
cut  and  courageous.  Babson  has  little  sympathy  with  the 
arguments  of  self-interest  of  business  men  or  with  the  out¬ 
worn  methods  of  the  church  in  industrial  communities. 
His  sole  interest  is  in  the  physical,  social,  and  spiritual 
salvation  of  the  men,  women,  and  children  in  our  indus¬ 
trial  centres. 


PRES.  WILLIAM  ALLEN  HARPER 

Author  of  “The  New  Church  For  The  New  Time ”  etc. 

The  Church  in  the  Present  Crisis 

$i-75. 

Hon.  Josephus  Daniels  says:  “Dr.  Harper  has  ably  pre¬ 
sented  the  demand  that  the  church  shape  the  thought  and 
life  of  the  future.  The  world,  having  tried  everything 
else,  is  becoming  convinced  that  no  Golden  Rule  alone  will 
be  the  savior.  Dr.  Harper  wisely  stresses  study  of  the 
Bible,  the  Christian  leaven  in  education,  the  duty  to  look 
difficult  problems  in  the  face  and  solve  them  by  application 
of  the  Christian  religion.  It  is  a  book  of  faith  with  wise 
directions  and  guidance. 

REV.  ALBERT  F.  McGARRAH 

Author  of  “ Modern  Church  Management .** 

Money  Talks 

Stimulating  Studies  in  Christian  Stewardship.  $1.25. 

Ministers  and  laymen,  who  desire  to  present  convinc¬ 
ingly  the  principles  and  practices  which  should  govern 
Christians  in  getting  and  using  money,  will  find  here  a 
wealth  of  _  fresh  material,  popular  in  style,  yet  deeply 
inspiring  in  tone.  A  companion  volume  to  “Modern 
Church  Finance”  and  “Modern  Church  Management.” 

LYMAN  EDWYN  DAVIS ,  D,D. ,  LL.D, 

Editor  “ Methodist  Recorder.** 

Democratic  Meth6dism  in  America 

A  Topical  Survey  of  the  Methodist  Protestant 
Church.  $1.50. 

A  history  of  the  Methodist  Protestant  church  from  its 
founding  in  1830,  pointing  out  the  various  links  in  the 
chain  of  circumstances  which  lead  to  the  organization  of 
the  Methodist  Protestant  Church  and  the  fundamental 

frinciples  which  prompted  and  justified  the  movement, 
t  constitutes  a  vigorous  and  ably-argued  plea  for  “mutual- 
rights”  Methodism. 


EVANGELISTIC  WORK 


OZORA  H.  DAVIS ,  D.D. 

President  Chicago  Theological  Seminary. 

Preaching  the  Social  Gospel 

$1.50. 

The  new  book  by  the  author  of  “Evangelistic  Preach 
mg”  is  the  next  book  every  preacher  should  read.  As  a 
high  authority  recently  said  “Every  preacher  needs  to 
read  books  on  preaching  and  the  problems  of  preaching 
and  should  read  one  such  book  every  year.”  It  would  be 
difficult  to  find  a  book  that  fits  this  need  better  than  this 
latest  work  of  President  Davis’. 

J.  WILBUR  CHAPMAN ,  D.D. 

Evangelistic  Sermons 

Edited  and  Compiled  by  Edgar  Whitaker 
Work,  D.D.,  with  Frontispiece.  $1.50. 

Strong,  fervid  gospel  addresses,  eminently  character¬ 
istic  of  one  of  the  great  evangelists  of  his  time.  Dr. 
Work  has  used  his  editorial  prerogatives  with  pronounced 
skill.  As  a  result  every  paragraph  is  reminiscent  of 
Dr.  Chapman,  and  from  every  page  of  the  book  one 
seems  to  hear  again  the  voice  and  compelling  message 
of  one  who  while  living,  preached  to  possibly  as  many 
people  as  any  man  of  his  generation,  who  “being  dead 
yet  speaketh.” 

LOUIS  ALBERT  BANKS ,  D.D. 

Author  o/‘‘  Thirty-one  Revival  Sermons' ’ 

The  New  Ten  Commandments 

and  Other  Sermons.  $1.50. 

Strong,  stirring  Gospel  addresses  reflecting  the  true 
evangelical  note,  Dr.  Banks’  latest  volume,  fully  main¬ 
tains  his  impressive,  picturesque  style  of  presentation. 
Apt  quotation,  fitting  illustration,  drawn  from  literature 
and  human  life  give  point  and  color  to  his  work,  which 
is  without  a  dull  or  meaningless  page. 

FRANK  CHALMERS  McKEAN,  A.  M. ,  D.D. 

The  Magnetism  of  Mystery 

and  Other  Sermons  _ . 

Introduction  by  J.  A.  Marquis,  D.D.  $1.25 

Dr.  John  A.  Marquis  says:  “Dr.  McKean’s  sermons  are 
shafts  with  points,  and  he  hurls  them  with  vigor  and  sure¬ 
ness.  They  will  be  read  with  interest,  not  only  for  what 
they  are  in  themselves,  but  as  types  of  the  pulpit  ministry 
that  is  making  the  Church  of  the  Middle  West.” 


STRIKING  ADDRESSES 


JOHN  HENRY  JOWETTyD.D. 

God  Our  Contemporary 

A  Series  of  Complete  Addresses  $1.50. 

Among  the  pulpit-giants  of  to-day  Dr.  Jowett  has  been 
given  a  high  place.  Every  preacher  will  want  at  once 
this  latest  product  of  his  fertile  mind.  It  consists  of  a 
series  of  full  length  sermons  which  are  intended  to  show 
that  only  in  God  as  revealed  to  us  in  Jesus  Christ  can 
twe  find  the  resources  to  meet  the  needs  of  human  life* 

SIDNEY  BERRY,  M.A. 

Revealing  Light  $1.50. 

A  volume  of  addresses  by  the  successor  to  Dr.  Jowett 
at  Carr’s  Dane  Church,  Birmingham,  the  underlying  aim 
of  which  is  to  show  what  the  Christian  revelation  means 
in  relation  to  the  great  historic  facts  of  the  Faith  and 
the  response  which  those  facts  must  awaken  in  the  hearts 
of  men  to-day.  Every  address  is  an  example  of  the 
best  preaching  of  this  famous  “preacher  to  young  men.” 

FREDERICK  C.  SPURR 

Last  Minister  of  Regent’s  Park  Chapel,  London, 

The  Master  Key 

A  Study  in  World-Problems  $1.35. 

A  fearless,  clearly-reasoned  restatement  of  the  terms  of 
the  Christian  Gospel  and  its  relation  to  the  travail  through 
which  the  world  is  passing.  Mr.  Spurr  is  a  man  in  the 
vanguard  of  religious  thought,  yet  just  as  emphatically  as 
any  thinker  of  the  old  school,  he  insists  on  one  Physician 
able  to  heal  the  wounds  and  woes  of  humanity. 

RUSSELL  H.  CONWELL,  D.D, 

Pastor  Baptist  Temple ,  Philadelphia , 

Unused  Powers  $1.25. 

To  “Acres  of  Diamonds,”  “The  Angel’s  Lily,”  “Why 

Lincoln  Laughed,”  “How  to  Live  the  Christ  Life,”  and 
many  other  stirring  volumes,  Dr.  Conwell  has  just  added 
another  made  up  of  some  of  his  choicest  addresses.  Dr. 
Conwell  speaks,  as  he  has  always  spoken,  out  of  the  ex* 
perimental  knowledge  and  practical  wisdom  of  a  man,  who 
having  long  faced  the  stark  realities  of  life,  has  been 
exalted  thereby. 

GAIUS  GLENN  ATKINS,  D.D. 

Minister  of  the  First  Congregational  Church, 

Detroit,  Michigan. 

The  Undiscovered  Country  $1.50. 

A  group  of  addresses  marked  by  distinction  of  style 
and  originality  of  approach.  The  title  discourse  furnishes 
a  central  theme  to  which  those  following  stand  in  rela¬ 
tion.  Dr.  Atkins’  work,  throughout,  is  marked  by  clarity 
,©f  presentation,  polished  diction  and  forceful  phrasing. 


